Photo Credit: RoboToaster.co
Originally posted on capitalROBOT.com/blog
Last night I had the privilege of hearing Dag Kittlaus (cofounder of Siri and Chicago native) speak to a sold out crowd of 500+ designers, developers, entrepreneurs at the monthly Technori Pitch event in Chicago. I will admit I didn’t know much about Dag coming into the event besides the obvious connection to the iPhone. Having been bought out by Apple in 2010, Siri became a household name in late 2011 when it was announced as part of the new iPhone 4S launch. But surprisingly the keynote was about so much more than just Siri, it was about the future and how unimaginable it will become.
“Who here has heard of the Law of Accelerating Returns?” A smattering of hands were raised in response. Dag went on to explain that it’s the idea that technological change is exponential, contrary to the intuitive linear view. Imagine all the technological change of the last 100 years. Based on the Law of Accelerating Returns the next 100 years will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate. For example he likened the previous 100 years as walking to the edge of the stage. The next 100 would be like reaching the moon over the same amount of time.
Dag paints a vivid portrait of the future where 3D printers pop out a hot pizza to your exact specifications. A future where organs are printed based on sample of your exact DNA structure. Don’t think you’ll live long enough to see these amazing feats of science? Well you’re in luck! The future will also bring advances in slowing down the aging process, and maybe even turning it off. “There’s a real discussion going on now as to whether the first human being that will live over 500 years is alive today.” You can hear pins drop. At this point I turn to my neighbor and whisper what I’m sure everyone else is thinking, “This guy is totally insane… right?” Yes, but in all the good ways.
Captivating doesn’t begin to describe Dag. He exudes an eerie calmness that makes you want to slap him in the face and give him a cup of coffee, but by no means does that mean he’s yawn inducing. He is a true visionary that can think outside of the box and also make you believe that he can execute. He spoke of his start with Siri and how he left his position at Motorola to move to Silicon Valley and explore the world of artificial intelligence. Throughout his speech and into the question and answer session Dag provided some good advice and takeaways for not only startups, but also Chicago as a whole.
Key Takeaways
Get the right people in the room.
Dag stressed the importance of creating the right team of people to execute, especially on the technical development side. He states that a good developer isn’t worth just two or three times the average, but upwards to fifty times their peers. It’s also important to find founders with complementary skill sets. If you are an idea man that likes to stay behind the scenes, it probably won’t help to find a developer that also likes to stay low key. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses and find the person that will match best.
Understand where you are going and make sure you get the timing correct.
In the words of great Wayne Gretsky, you have to “skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been.” In his experience, Dag noticed that one of the key reasons startup’s fail is not due to a poor plan or idea, but because the timing is incorrect. A hot idea today may not be so hot tomorrow. Some of you might remember Odeo started by Evan Williams. It was a directory and search destination website for podcasts. They had the unfortunate timing of running into iTunes who now dominates that segment. The founder and the ideas were good, but it ultimately failed because of timing and not execution. Luckily for Evan, his next startup (Twitter) got the recipe right.
Chicago needs to figure out how to tap the engineering talent.
“Groupon has 200 people working in technology and all of them live in Palo Alto, CA. And they’re hiring 100 more that are going to be in Palo Alto and that’s bad news. Not just for Groupon, but Chicago needs to get their act together on that front. So that’s basically why I’m back”
-Dag Kittlaus
Powerful and sobering words from a man like Dag. In a few sentences, he really hit home on how Chicago can improve. It’s a harsh reality that a company like Groupon has to go west in order to hire talent. Hopefully startups such as Code Academy can really help develop technical talent in the area.
Conclusion
While leaving the auditorium I couldn’t help but reflect back on all the things Dag said. In a short time he was able to weave a story of an unthinkable tomorrow while also giving everyone advice on what to do today in order to achieve this goal. What can the community in Chicago do to help build me a 3D printer that will deliver an amazing slice of Pequod’s deep dish straight to my house? If there’s anyone out there that has an idea, I’ve got some capital for you.
As Steve Jobs said, Stay hungry, Stay foolish.
David Dokko
Principal
