Conversation

Replying to
He *said* the right things, including innovating/building but framing it as a new “Sputnik moment” was a mistake. A bureaucrat type mistake. You don’t inspire by pointing to the past.
Image
1
5
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.
1
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.
1
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.
1
1
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.
1
4
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.
1
7
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.
1
14
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.
1
8