Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-06-10)

Bloomberg Businessweek | Sooner Than YouThink June 10, 2019

At their cores, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and their

peers are advertising companies. Their job is to design

addictive services and have you spend as much time on

them as possible. Your time, your data, your virtual self

is the product. Many of the world’s smartest people have

been funneled to the Bay Area to accomplish this with

ever-increasing efficiency. This isn’t Don Draper trying to

win over the public with a catchy jingle. It’s the greatest

assembly of brainpower ever harnessed, aiming to pull you

out of the real world into an invented one that’s measured

and manipulated with shocking precision.

Even so, I think we’ve become too myopic in our

haranguing of social media and search engines. These

services are technology, but technology is much more—

and it’s still as powerful a tool as ever. It’s just that Silicon

Valley isn’t the only place where the future is being made.

L

ook at the aerospace industry. Rocket and satel-

lite operations are popping up in Australia, China,

Denmark, Israel, Japan, and New Zealand. Small teams

ofpeopleare buildingthingsthatusedtorequirethe

resourcesofnationalgovernments.Similarshiftshave

takenplacewithtransportation,asimprovementsinelec-

tricbatteriesandmotors,softwarecontrolsystems,and

artificialintelligencehavegivenpeoplethebeliefthattheir

sci-fidreamsarepossible.

Theimprovementsintechnologyhavebeenhelped

alongbytools developedinSiliconValley—especially

cloudcomputingandopensourcesoftware.Andthey’ve

beenaccompaniedbysomepromisingsocialandcultural

shifts,too.TakethecaseofNaomiKurahara,a Japanese

electricalengineer.In 2016 shefoundeda companycalled

InfostellarInc.that’screatinga cheaperwayforsatel-

litestodeliverinformationaroundtheworld.Inyears

past,Kuraharalikelywouldhavestayedinacademiaafter

receivingherPh.D.orgonetoworkata largeJapanese

techconglomerate.Instead,shetooka risk,formeda

startup,andraisedcapitalfrominvestorswhiletotingher

newbornbabytopitchmeetingsandhavinghimsleepin

a boxnexttoher.“I didn’tthinkmuchaboutit,”shesays.

“I’ma CEOanda mom.They’rebothmyjobs.”

Oneofherbackers,LewisPinaultofAirbusVentures,

haslivedinJapanformanyyearsandreadfarmoreinto

themoment.He’swatchedthegreatJapaneseindustrial

andtechempiresstruggleandseenthesocietyadaptin

imaginativeways.“Therehasbeena bigsocietaldisloca-

tion,wheretheideaoflifetimeemploymentandtrusting

andrelyingona bigcompanyisgone,”hesays.“People

havebeenforcedtobemorecreativeandfigureoutthings

forthemselves,andtheyhavestartedself-organizing.It

wasinconceivableyearsagothatsomeoneinNaomi’s

positionwouldstarta company.”

Toitscredit,SiliconValleysettheexampleforthis.Its

cultureofunbridledambitionandtherelentlesspursuit

Peering inside a social

robot from Sweden’s

Furhat Robotics

An underwater drone

built by Abyss Solutions

explores a reef near

Sydney

STILLS FROM

HELLO WORLD

, A BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK WEB SERIES

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