February 4, 2010
For the past few years I’ve co-hosted an interesting dinner, where I ask each guest to speak for less than 2 minutes on a way they think the world will change in the next 5 years – that is not obvious.
In December I hosted 70 leaders in a wide variety of disciplines – from horticulture to economics. The guest list included; 2 Governors, 7 CEO’s of companies of more than $2 billion in revenue, Chief Investment Officers of more than $38 Billion, 11 venture capitalists, etc….so you get the idea.
The 70 ideas were then voted on by each table, and below is a finalist – on ways the world will change that are not obvious. Please share your ideas on other non-obvious predictions and your thoughts about this one.
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Posted by bendupont
February 2, 2010
yet2.com's Tokyo Office - The 2nd Floor
I spend a lot of time in Asia, in particular Japan. yet2.com has had an office there for 10 years.
Why? 1) Because so much of the worlds technology and patents are created there; 2) Because so many of the worlds largest companies (buyers of patents and technology) are there and 3) Because it’s a great launching pad into to; Korea, Taiwan and broader China.
I made my first trip to Japan promoting Open Innovation and patent liquidity, in 1999. Since 2000 we have had the same team on the ground – managed by Fujii-san. I was in Japan in December and I was there again last week. Here are a few observations from my trip;
1) The economy is recovering – slowly – but it is happening.
2) Unemployment is still to high.
3) Patent acquisition budgets are growing – and turning back on
4) There is a surprisingly large pipeline of new technologies / product about to be launched.
5) Location based technologies and human/machine interface technologies are of high interest, among others.
6) There is a great 4 mile run around the Royal Palace that is perfect for jet lag.
Makino-san, Fujii-san, Me, Takeuchi-san on Friday 1/29/10
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Posted by bendupont
January 30, 2010
Life is cluttered with noise; from pop up banners to drivle. In between all of this nosie, are the signals that really matter. The ballet recital of my 3 year old. The conversation about public policy with my Dad. The moment of technical clarity on a new biomaterial.
The art of life is optomizing the signal to noise ratio.
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January 17, 2010
The dictionary says friction is ‘a force resisting the motion of surfaces in contact’, but I think there is another type of friction – the friction between capital and great ideas. I think this latter kind of friction is key to economic growth and it’s about to undergo sigificant transformations.
In 1720, if you were bright and ambitious (and free), the only legal way to make money was to either to have rich parents or to spend a life toiling away - and if you were lucky you just might be able to provide for your family. The situation was so bleak that even Ben Franklin, about the brightest those times had to offer, found his best choice was to run away from home and apprenticeship. Fast forward 200 years, friction drops a little with the aid of low tax rates and democracy, and the industrial revolution takes ahold. 
In the 1990’s we saw the second drop – an even larger decrease in friction aided by the internet and a rich ecosystem of venture capital – that democratized entrepreneurship. No longer was a life of toil required first – and the world changed so much that a kid named Michael in his dorm room, revolutionized how computers were made and capital found its way to his door step – or students like Larry and Sergey changed how knowledge is indexed and shared. Now, these guys toiled plenty – but there was much less toil finding capital or customers – they toiled perfecting their business models. Ben Franklin would have loved this world.
I predict in 2010 we will see the 3rd, and largest drop, in the friction between capital and good ideas. What are the first signs?
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Posted by bendupont
December 19, 2009
In preparation for the holiday feast, I was running with an accomplished surgeon. The conversation drifted to time management. Actually it was a conversation by a lose definition. He talked and I made sounds like that of a snorting reindeer.
He’s increasingly pressed for lots of little favors, and he has learned to say ‘No’. ’No’ is liberating, and its far better than an ineffective ‘yes’, he said.
As I think back, I’ve heard this from another source, Jim Collins author of ‘Good to Great’. Mr Collins was asked at a conference what things great leaders did and he responded “great leaders all have ‘do not do’ lists”. Heard of a ‘to do’ list?, well a ‘do not do’ list is the opposite.
What does ‘No’ do in Open Inniovation and Venture Capital?
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Posted by bendupont
What will the Large Hadron Collider reveal?
January 10, 2010I’m fascinated by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the great discoveries that it will reveal. Ironically, I have heard very little about it in the technology community. How might these discoveries impact Open Innovation and Venture Capital? They might change the landscape of technology, making under appreciated technologies high value, and the inverse.
Below is the best article I’ve seen on the LHC, it is a reprint from LA Times written by Steve Giddings (a physics professor at the University of California Santa Barbara) – Ben duPont
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Despite all we have learned in physics — from properties of faraway galaxies to the deep internal structure of the protons and neutrons that make up an atomic nucleus — we still face vexing mysteries. The collider is poised to begin to unravel them. By colliding protons at ultra-high energies and allowing scientists to observe the outcome in its mammoth detectors, the LHC could open new frontiers in understanding space and time, the microstructure of matter and the laws of nature.
We know, for example, that all the types of matter we see, that constitute our ordinary existence, are a mere fraction — 20 percent — of the matter in the universe. The remaining 80 percent apparently is mysterious “dark matter”; though it is all around us, its existence is inferred only via its gravitational pull on visible matter. LHC collisions might produce dark-matter particles so we can study their properties directly and thereby unveil a totally new face of the universe.
The collider might also shed light on the more predominant “dark energy,” which is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. If the acceleration continues, the ultimate fate of the universe may be very, very cold, with all particles flying away from one another to infinite distances.
More widely anticipated is the discovery of the Higgs particle — sometimes inaptly called the God particle — whose existence is postulated to explain why some matter has mass. Were it not for the Higgs, or something like it, the electrons in our bodies would behave like light beams, shooting into space, and we would not exist.
If the Higgs is not discovered, its replacement may involve something as profound as another layer of substructure to matter. It might be that the most elementary known particles, like the quarks that make up a proton, are made from tinier things. This would be revolutionary — like discovering the substructure of the atom, but at a deeper level.
More profound still, the LHC may reveal extra dimensions of space, beyond the three that we see. The existence of a completely new type of dimension — what is called “supersymmetry” — means that all known particles have partner particles with related properties. Supersymmetry could be discovered by the LHC producing these “superpartners,” which would make characteristic splashes in its detectors. Superpartners may also make up dark matter — and two great discoveries would be made at once.
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