Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Where are the tech innovators?

An interesting thing has happened over the last few years… tech innovators have gotten older. Gates and Ballmer (Microsoft), Ellison (Oracle), and Jobs (Apple) are all over 50. Remember when all of these men and companies were just upstarts?

Well, times are a changing. We have now reached the end or the beginning of the end of some of these careers. Gates has left Microsoft after a 2 year swan song; Ellison is so busy with his sailing that I would be surprised if he hits the office twice a week; and finally, Jobs has been hampered by pancreatic cancer in the past, and his appearance at the Apple Conference started the health rumors anew.

All of these men are important in the history of technology innovation, and with their careers slowing down, where do these companies go from here? Ballmer has not been a big success at Microsoft (MSFT), and the team under him is also not exactly fresh blood. Ellison has no clear heir apparent, and who knows... maybe he will be there another two decades. Jobs is probably the most important to his company, and while Apple clearly has brilliant minds, not one of them is Jobs.

Not to fear though, a new crop of leaders is emerging. Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Google, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, and probably 10 other soon to be billionaires that we have never even heard of... yet.

In the end, the big guys will be there, but the nimbleness and fire will be gone. A new wave of innovation is coming be it in energy, communication, transportation, or ??? We do not know where it will begin, but we will all be looking for it...

This little walk down memory lane has been brought to you by the retirement of Bill Gates.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rest assured, the new emerging generation of leaders is not lacking in fire and agility!