Category: Entrepreneurship

Obstacles and Conflicts Were Too Much for Lanier’s “VPL Research” Startup

(p. 11) Lanier’s book is, . . . , intimate and idiosyncratic. He carries us through his quirky and fascinating life story, with periodic nerdy side trips through his early thinking on more technical aspects of virtual reality. If you liked Richard Feynman’s autobiographical “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” but thought it was rather self-indulgent, this book will prompt similar reactions. You could almost say that Lanier’s vivid and creative imagination is a distinct character in this book, he discusses it so much. Midway through, Feynman himself makes an appearance, and it seems as if we’re meeting an old friend.
Lanier has been credited with inventing the term “virtual reality,” and he founded one of the original companies to produce it, VPL Research. He goes over the technology’s history in detail, outlining not only the obstacles to getting consistent hardware but some personalities and interpersonal conflicts that ultimately led to his company’s breaking up. He also demonstrates the role personal connections and interactions play in Silicon Valley.

For the full review, see:
CATHY O’NEIL. “Enter the Holodeck.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, February 4, 2018): 11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JAN. 30, 2018.)

The book under review, is:
Lanier, Jaron. Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2017.

“We Have to Entrepreneurialize Society”

Economist Klaus Schwab is the founder and organizer of the annual Davos gatherings of government and corporate insiders.

(p. R15) MR. BAKER: There has been a tremendous growth in industrial concentration, big companies getting bigger. Small companies are essentially being squeezed out. There’s a concern that it’s not just bureaucracies and supernational institutions, but companies themselves, are just too big and too remote. What can be done to address those concerns?
PROF. SCHWAB: We have to entrepreneurialize society. If we look where jobs will come from, they will come mainly from new enterprises, from medium-size enterprises. So companies and countries have to create an ecosystem which allows young people to create their own companies. We have to create new Facebook s, new Googles, and so on. Then we have the necessary dynamic situation which maintains a certain degree of competition in the economy.

For the full interview, see:
Gerard Baker, interviewer. “Nationalism vs. Globalism: A Question of Balance; Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, on how to deal with a fractured world.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018): R15.
(Note: bold in original.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has a date of Jan. 22, 2018.)

Taboo Geoengineer Outlaws Could Counter Global Warming

(p. D3) A quarter-century ago, Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, blew its top in a big way: It spewed a cubic mile of rock and ash and 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. The gas spread around the world and combined with water vapor to make aerosols, tiny droplets that reflected some sunlight away from the Earth. As a result, average global temperatures dropped by about one degree Fahrenheit for several years.
Powerful volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo’s in 1991 are one of the biggest natural influences on climate. So NASA researchers and other scientists are planning a rapid-response program to study the next big one.
But the climate impact of a Pinatubo-size eruption is also a natural analog of an idea that has existed on the fringes of science for years: geoengineering, or intervening in the atmosphere to deliberately cool the planet.
One geoengineering approach would use high-flying jets to spray similar chemicals in the stratosphere. So by studying the next big volcanic eruption, scientists would also gain insights into how such a scheme, known as solar radiation management, or S.R.M., might work.
“This is important if we’re ever going to do geoengineering,” said Alan Robock, a Rutgers University researcher who models the effects of eruptions and who has been involved in discussions about the rapid-response project.
. . .
Geoengineering has long had an outlaw image among much of the scientific community, viewed as risky last-resort measures to solve climate problems that would be better dealt with by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Even discussing geoengineering concepts has long been considered taboo among many scientists.
. . .
But in the past few years, some scientists and policymakers have begun to argue for limited direct research into geoengineering concepts to better understand their potential as well as risks, and be better prepared should global warming reach a point where some kind of emergency action were deemed necessary.
A few scientists have proposed small-scale outdoor experiments to study aspects of solar radiation management, and last month the American Geophysical Union, one of the nation’s largest scientific societies, endorsed the idea of some research into what it called “climate intervention.”

For the full story, see:
Henry Fountain. “A Volcanic Idea for Cooling the Earth.” The New York Times (Tuesday, February 6, 2018): D3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 1, 2018, and has the title “The Next Big Volcano Could Briefly Cool Earth. NASA Wants to Be Ready.”)

Serial Breakthrough Innovators Have “Almost Maniacal Focus”

(p. C4) It’s 6 a.m., and I’m rushing around my apartment getting ready to fly to California to teach an innovation workshop, when my 10-year-old son looks at me with sad eyes and asks, “Why are you always busy?” My heart pounds, and that familiar knife of guilt and pain twists in my stomach. Then a thought flickers through my head: Does Jeff Bezos go through this?
I recently finished writing a book about innovators who achieved multiple breakthroughs in science and technology over the past two centuries. Of the eight individuals I wrote cases about, only one, Marie Curie, is a woman. I tried to find more, even though I knew in my scientist’s heart that deliberately looking for women would bias my selection process. But I didn’t find other women who met the criteria I had laid out at the beginning of the project.
. . .
The politically correct thing to say at this point is that expanding the roster of future innovators to include more women will require certain obvious changes in how we handle family life: Men and women should have more equal child-care responsibilities, and businesses (or governments) should make affordable, quality child care more accessible. But I don’t think it is as simple as that.
In my own case, I can afford more child care, but I don’t want to relinquish more of my caregiving to others. From the moment I first gave birth, I felt a deep, primal need to hold my children, nurture them and meet their needs. Nature is extremely clever, and she has crafted an intoxicating cocktail of oxytocin and other neurochemicals to rivet the attention of parents on their children.
The research on whether this response is stronger for mothers than for fathers is inconclusive. It is tough to compare the two, because there are strong gender differences in how hormones work. Historically, however, women have taken on a larger share of the caregiving responsibilities for children, and many (myself included) would not have it any other way.
Is such a view hopelessly retrograde, a rejection of hard-won feminist achievements? I don’t think so.
The need to connect with our children does not prevent women from being successful. There are many extremely successful women with very close relationships with their children. But it might get in the way of having the almost maniacal focus that the most famous serial breakthrough innovators exhibit.
I’m no Marie Curie, but I do have obsessive tendencies. If I did not have a family, I would routinely work until 4 a.m. if I had an interesting problem to chase down. But now I have children, and so at 5 p.m., I need to dial it back and try to refocus my attention on things like homework and making dinner. I cannot single-mindedly focus on my work; part of my mind must belong to the children.
This doesn’t mean that mothers cannot be important innovators, but it might mean that their careers play out differently. Their years of intense focus might start later, or they might ebb and surge over time. The more we can do to enable people to have nonlinear career paths, the more we will increase innovation among women–and productivity more generally.

For the full commentary, see:
Melissa Schilling. “Why Women Are Rarely Serial Innovators; A single-minded life of invention is hard to combine with family obligations. One solution: ‘nonlinear’ careers.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018): C4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has a date of Feb. 2, 2018.)

Schilling’s commentary is related to his book:
Schilling, Melissa A. Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World. New York: PublicAffairs, 2018.

Musk’s Slow Hunch May Be Undone by Smaller Satellites

(p. B3) SpaceX ‘s long-delayed Falcon Heavy rocket, slated for its maiden flight on Tuesday [February 6, 2018], faces uncertain commercial prospects and lacks a clear role in efforts to send U.S. astronauts back to the moon or deeper into the solar system.
The company conceived the rocket at the beginning of the decade, when SpaceX was an underdog fighting to increase its share of launches and needed a beefed-up alternative to a fleet of underpowered boosters. But after spending some $1 billion and grappling with five years of delays and huge technical challenges related to reliably harnessing power from 27 engines, the company is contending with significantly eroded commercial demand for such a potent heavy-lift booster.
The primary reason for the weakened demand is that both national security and corporate satellites continue to get smaller and lighter. So now, even if it performs as advertised, the Falcon Heavy might be Elon Musk’s biggest contrarian bet since he founded SpaceX over 15 years ago.

For the full story, see:
Andy Pasztor. “SpaceX Launch to Test Contrarian Bet.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Feb. 5, 2018): B3.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has a date of Feb. 4, 2018, and has the title “New Falcon Heavy Rocket Represents a Major Bet for SpaceX.”)

Level of Loneliness About the Same as 70 Years Ago

(p. 8) . . . is loneliness, as many political officials and pundits are warning, a growing “health epidemic”?
. . .
The main evidence for rising isolation comes from a widely reported sociology journal article claiming that in 2004, one in four Americans had no one in their life they felt they could confide in, compared with one in 10 during the 1980s. But that study turned out to be based on faulty data, and other research shows that the portion of Americans without a confidant is about the same as it has long been. Although one of the authors has distanced himself from the paper (saying, “I no longer think it’s reliable”), scholars, journalists and policymakers continue to cite it.
The other data on loneliness are complicated and often contradictory, in part because there are so many different ways of measuring the phenomenon. But it’s clear that the loneliness statistics cited by those who say we have an epidemic are outliers. For example, one set of statistics comes from a study that counted as lonely people who said they felt “left out” or “isolated,” or “lacked companionship” — even just “some of the time.” That’s an exceedingly low bar, and surely not one we’d want doctors or policymakers to use in their work.
One reason we need to be careful about how we measure and respond to loneliness is that, as the University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo argues, an occasional and transitory feeling of loneliness can be healthy and productive. It’s a biological signal to ourselves that we need to build stronger social bonds.
Professor Cacioppo has spent much of his career documenting the dangers of loneliness. But it’s notable that he relies on more measured statistics in his own scientific papers than the statistics described above. One of his articles, from last year, reports that around 19 percent of older Americans said they had felt lonely for much of the week before they were surveyed, and that in Britain about 6 percent of adults said they felt lonely all or most of the time. Those are worrisome numbers, but they are quite similar to the numbers reported in Britain in 1948, when about 8 percent of older adults said they often or always felt lonely, and to those in previous American studies as well.

For the full commentary, see:
ERIC KLINENBERG. “Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sunday, February 11, 2018): 8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date FEB. 9, 2018.)

Mars Is Humanity’s “Backup Plan”

(p. C3) The stated goal of the U.S. Mars program is to create a permanent base there. That is difficult to imagine in the planet’s harsh environment, which was depicted with such stark realism in the 2015 film “The Martian.”
But there are possibilities on the planet for making bases more viable. Mars explorers could use natural lava tubes in extinct volcanoes to create an underground base shielded against harmful radiation. Underground deposits of ice discovered in recent years could be used for drinking water and to provide oxygen for breathing, as well as hydrogen for rocket fuel. In theory, astronauts could eventually establish agricultural stations to create a self-sustaining colony, using genetically modified plants that could thrive in a cold environment rich in carbon dioxide.
A new spirit of exploration and discovery is certainly part of the push for this new space age, but concerns about the future of the Earth are also a motive. There is a growing realization that life on the planet is extremely fragile, that killer asteroids, super volcanoes and ice ages have nearly extinguished life in the past, and that climate change may spin out of control. Even if the Earth remains habitable, we know that one day the sun itself will expire.
So the choice ultimately will be simple: Colonize outer space, or perish. We need an insurance policy, a backup plan. The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program. We may need ours to evade their fate.

For the full commentary, see:
Michio Kaku. “To the Moon, Mars and Beyond.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018): C3.
(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated Feb. 6, 2018, and has the title “SpaceX Rocket Launch Is Latest Step Toward the Moon, Mars and Beyond.”)

Kaku’s commentary is related to his book:
Kaku, Michio. The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth. New York: Doubleday, 2018.

Blobel Pursued a Slow Hunch for Over 30 Years

(p. B19) Günter Blobel, a molecular biologist who was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that proteins in any living cell have virtual ZIP codes that guide them to where they can help regulate body tissues, organs and chemistry, died on Sunday [February 18, 2018] in Manhattan. He was 81.
. . .
The cause was cancer.
. . .
He spent nearly all his working life at Rockefeller University, what he regarded as the Valhalla of research.
Like many scientific advances, Dr. Blobel’s had no moment of “Eureka!” It unfolded over 30 years of painstaking, often frustrating, but occasionally thrilling investigation: a process of building on others’ work, intuitive thinking to form new hypotheses, and testing, using the results to modify his theories, and then testing and modifying again and again.
Driven to find underlying causes of diseases that were being treated for symptoms, and funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he successively developed five models of his original “beautiful idea.” Along the way he won many prestigious awards, some for essentially the same insights recognized later by the Nobel committee.

For the full obituary, see:
ROBERT D. McFADDEN. “Günter Blobel, Nobel Laureate Who Found Cell ‘ZIP Codes,’ Dies at 81.” The New York Times (Saturday, Feb. 20, 2018): B19.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has a date of Feb. 19, 2018.)

Silicon Valley’s Intolerance of Intellectual Diversity

(p. B4) Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has said he plans to leave Silicon Valley in part because of its perceived cultural uniformity. He isn’t the only one.
Several tech workers and entrepreneurs also have said they left or plan to leave the San Francisco Bay Area because they feel people there are resistant to different social values and political ideologies. Groupthink and homogeneity are making it a worse place to live and work, these workers said.
. . .
Tim Ferriss, the tech investor and best-selling author of the “4 Hour Workweek,” moved to Austin, Texas, in December, after living in the Bay Area for 17 years, partly because he felt people there penalized anyone who didn’t conform to a hyper liberal credo.
People in Silicon Valley “openly lie to one another out of fear of losing their jobs or being publicly crucified,” said Mr. Ferriss in a recent discussion on Reddit.
. . .
Preethi Kasireddy said she wasn’t surprised when she heard the news that Mr. Thiel is moving to Los Angeles from San Francisco. Ms. Kasireddy, a 27-year-old startup entrepreneur, said she made the same move last November because, like Mr. Thiel, she felt surrounded by people who shared identical beliefs, particularly about how to build a successful company.
Sometimes Silicon Valley venture-capital investors and startup founders “have a certain way of thinking, and if you don’t fit into that way of thinking you’re not in the cool club,” said Ms. Kasireddy, who declined to state her political beliefs but said they didn’t influence her decision to move. She also said she realized many of the resources she needed to build her next project–a blockchain startup–didn’t require her to be in Silicon Valley.

For the full story, see:
Douglas MacMillan. “‘Thiel Isn’t Alone In Tech Departure.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, February 20, 2018): B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has a date of Feb. 18, 2018, and has the title “Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’.”)

Musk Poured PayPal Money into SpaceX and Tesla

(p. A15) Mr. Musk’s first success was X.com, an email payment company. It merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity to form PayPal–and avoid competition. They had the market to themselves for a long time because fraud, especially from Eastern Europe, was so rampant on early internet payment platforms. They solved the fraud problem and enjoyed an uncontested market, eventually selling for $1.5 billion to eBay .
Then Mr. Musk headed further into the future. He took the nine-figure payout from PayPal and pushed ahead with SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City. Literally his last $20 million went to Tesla in 2008. “I was tapped out. I had to borrow money for rent after that,” he later recalled.
. . .
[Google’s Larry] Page reportedly once told a venture capitalist, “You know, if I were to get hit by a bus today, I should leave all of it to Elon Musk.” He later explained to Charlie Rose he liked Mr. Musk’s idea of going to Mars “to back up humanity.” Good luck with that. But then again, I would love to see them try.

For the full commentary, see:
Andy Kessler. ”Elon Musk’s Uncontested 3-Pointers; What does the Tesla and SpaceX founder have in common with Stephen Curry?” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Feb. 26, 2018): A15.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed words, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 25, 2018.)