Big societal responses to big challenges are sui generis. You can and should learn from similar big events in history but it’s dangerous to use them as a lens. Obama’s 2010 “Sputnik moment” was an example of such a misstep in response to GFC.https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/12/06/president-obama-north-carolina-our-generation-s-sputnik-moment-now …
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I saw a bit of the backend of this btw. I went to the 2010 NAE (National Academy of Engineering) FoE (Future of Engineering) symposium representing Xerox, hey look I’m even in their website
. I recall they talked Sputnik moment in framing the event https://www.naefrontiers.org/22542/Venkatesh-Rao …Show this thread -
It was well-intentioned and the talks were interesting enough, but if it was meant to actually kick off the search for a new Sputnik Moment, it was frankly a joke. The wrong people were running it, with the wrong frame and the wrong invitees.
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It was run like a routine DARPA or NSF program review type thing, just a bit fancier with better food. It was not even wrong as a Sputnik-moment hunt.
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When I read about actual Sputnik moment type episodes in history, like for example Safi Bahcall’s Loonshots which includes an account of Vannevar Bush setting up the OSD/precursor to DARPA in WW2, it’s night and day.
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A big part of the difference is indexing on current challenge and grilling it’s essence — the genius of the moment — rather than reaching for a similar sized past event to frame the present.
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Another part is picking the right people to be in the room. A track record of ambition and accomplishment is necessary but not sufficient. They have to be more interested in the logic of the present than the inertia of their past accomplishments.
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If you’ve ever been to a Big STEM meeting full of academics and program administrators and a sprinkling of industry types you’ll notice something. They’re all stuck in their own successful pasts and looking for ways to extend it into the future.
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They’re usually in the room to try and get a slice of the new pie to extend their old program. Usually one set in motion on some vector a decade ago. They are literally not paying attention to the present at all. Depressing af. Not had people, just lost in their own worlds.
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I’m cueing up a cold take. If you aren’t aware of the deep and chequered history of “building” in America, you’ll probably miss the point of
@pmarca essay. I’ll probably unpack it from my perspective in this week’s@breaking_smart on Friday. Stay tuned.https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/ …Show this thread -
(wanted to wait out the predictable derpfest of the first techlashy news cycle so we can discuss the interesting bits after the hot take crowd moves on)
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End of conversation
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