As I was reading this book about a Silicon Valley startup, Theranos, nothing really surprised me. In this world, "fake it until you make it" is the maAs I was reading this book about a Silicon Valley startup, Theranos, nothing really surprised me. In this world, "fake it until you make it" is the mantra. The CEO and Chairwoman, Elizabeth Holmes, patterned herself after her idol, Steve Jobs, and an her company in a similar "reality distortion field" that Jobs ran his. When Holmes' engineers said it couldn't be done, run hundreds of medical tests with one drop of blood, she told them they were not committed enough to the vision and kicked them back into the lab; same as Jobs. Jobs would have been proud right up until she crossed the line; fielding a medical device that didn't work, provided false results, and affected the lives of many patients.
Her charisma was off the charts and fooled many people, like her board:
former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry former Secretary of State George Shultz former Senators Sam Nunn and Bill Frist former Navy Admiral Gary Roughead former Marine Corps General James Mattis and former CEOs Dick Kovacevich of Wells Fargo and Riley Bechtel of Bechtel.
It is a shame really. With some real guidance, Holmes might have been able to build something extraordinary. ...more
Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzwell founded Singularity University back in 2008. Their mission is to "educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply expoPeter Diamandis and Ray Kurzwell founded Singularity University back in 2008. Their mission is to "educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” [1]
Exponential Technologies Definition: Systems or tools where "the power and/or speed doubles each year, and/or the cost drops by half.” [2]
At the university’s founding, Diamandis and Kurzwell appointed Salim Ismail to be the school’s executive director and global ambassador. [3] Their joint vision, their Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP), is to "Build an Abundant Future Together.” [2]
Diamandis published “Abundance” in 2012 in order to explain the abundance concept to the world. [4] Later, in 2014, Ismail published “Exponential Organizations” to explain how modern business could take advantage of these exponential technologies and build leaner and more efficient companies in an abundant world. [5]
So, just what do these visionaries mean when they talk about Abundance?
Abundance is this radical idea that exponential technologies, those that meet the definition above, will flip our common notion about scarcity. For example, we all think about oil as a scarce resource because it is hard to get oil out of the ground. Oil companies make money by selling that scarcity because the typical consumer does not have the means to do it themselves. But in an abundant future, the cost of solar power and the exponential technologies that drive it might become so cheap that energy becomes essentially free for every person on the planet. Pause for a second and let that idea roll over you. Free energy for everybody on the planet. The mind boggles.
In that future, oil companies would find themselves in an abundant world where their demonstrated expertise to get oil out of the ground is no longer needed. If this happens, this would be a classic case of Diamandis Six Ds of Exponentials; a predictable and observable transformational process that is occurring in many business sectors where exponential technologies are present:
Digitization: Once a technology becomes digitized, it is easy to access, share, and distribute. Solar went digital about 25 years ago. [6] [7] [8]
Deception: After digitization, growth is deceptively small until the numbers break the whole-number barrier. [9] If the speed of your exponential technology grows from .034 to .068, most will not notice. But once it grows to 1.088, that is crossing the whole-number barrier. When it grows ten more times, that number becomes exponential: 38,788.92. That is exactly what has been happening to the solar energy sector and the exponential technologies that drive it for the past 25 years. [4]
Disruption: After the whole-number barrier is broken, the existing market is disrupted by the new market’s effectiveness and cost. [9] In the energy business, pundits call this the Utility Death Spiral as many utility companies have banned together to lobby against the proliferation of solar. [10]
Demonetization: The technology increasingly becomes cheaper. [9] In 1998, residential solar power installation cost was $12 per WATT. In 2015, home owners pay under $4 per WATT. [11] In 2017, one home owner went from paying $250 a month for electricity to paying zero. [12]
Dematerialization: Physical products are moved. [9] As more people move to Solar power, oil company refineries will start to vanish. The reliance of utility companies to distribute power start to disappear replaced by the individual home owner’s ability to generate and store their own power. [13]
Democratization. Once the other 5 Ds happen, the technology price is so cheap that anybody can have it. [9] Energy flips from being a scarce resource to being an abundant resource.
According to Diamandis, Kurzweil, and Ismail, this Abundance idea of the future is not a science fiction fantasy either. It is happening right before our eyes. They say that the world will flip from scarcity to abundance in the next 20 years for certain of humanity’s “Grand Challenges:"
Food Water Shelter Energy Communication Education Healthcare Freedom
Kurzweil came up with an interesting metric to track this exponential technology behavior in his book, "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology:” What are the number of calculations per second that technology can perform for $1,000? [14] In 1900, with Charles Babbage’s mechanical Analytical Engine, the number of calculations was extremely small; only 0.000005821. But every five to ten years, that numbered doubled. By 1949, the number was 1.837, and we were off to the races. By 1977, the number was 26,870. By 1998, the last year in the study, the number was 133,300,000. [15] [16] That is demonstrated exponential growth.
And even though Diamandis does not include cybersecurity in his list of grand challenges, you can certainly start to see the affects of the Six D’s on the network defender community:
Digitization: More and more network defenders are putting their log data in the cloud where third parties can get access.
Deception: This is the phase we are now but not many have noticed yet.
Disruption: After the whole-number barrier is broken, the disruption will happen at the point product vendors.
Demonetization: Network defenders will realize they don’t need point products to perform a specific task in their networks. They will get those services from the cloud at a much cheaper rate.
Dematerialization: Point products start to disappear.
Democratization. Cloud security services delivered to very cheap enforcement points makes it possible for anybody to get open source security services essentially for free.
The authors are quick to point out that just because exponential growth is happening in many interesting technological areas doesn’t guarantee that the world’s entrepreneurial and technological leadership will build solutions to take advantage of it. The Singularity University's founders established the school just for that purpose. But they also realized that more emphasis is needed. The “Abundance” authors suggest that another way to encourage investment in exponential technologies is to create incentive competitions. [4]. The prizes establish a competition with a specific goal in mind and offer a high value prize as an incentive.
A Sample Set of Incentive Prizes
Prize: The Orteig Prize ($25,000) [4] Problem: First nonstop aircraft flight between New York and Paris. Winner: Chalres Lindberg in 1927
Prize: The XPrize ($10 M) [17] Problem: The first commercial, reusable 3-person spaceship. Winner: Richard Branson in 2004
Prize: The Google Lunar XPrize ($30 M) [18] Problem: Land on the moon, travel 500 meters, transmit high definition videos back to earth Winner: Nobody yet
Prize: The Wendy Schmidth Ocean Health XPrize ($2 M) [19] Problem: Create PH Sensor technology that will affordably, accurately, and efficiently measure ocean chemistry. Winner: Sunburst Sensors, ANB Sensors, and Team Durafet
Prize: The Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize ($10 M) [20] Problem: Build a device that will accurately diagnose 13 health conditions and capture five real-time health vital signs, independent of a health care worker or facility, and in a way that provides a compelling consumer experience. Winner: Final Frontier Medical Devices and Dynamical Biomarkers Group
I admit that the naive and hopeful side of me really wants the ideas expressed in “Abundance" to be true. The notion that many of the world’s “grand challenges” that I have been exposed to in my life could literally dematerialize because science found a solution to them does my science-fiction-fanboy side good. The cynic side of me though is grappling with the nagging notion that if it sounds too good to be true, then maybe it is. I am slightly concerned that the “Abundance” authors might just be a highly exponential form of the huckster. Diamandis, Ismail, and Kurzweil have certainly built a cottage industry around these ideas. That said, the grand challenges they identified are certainly following their “Six Ds of Exponentials;" especially in energy. Most are tantalizingly just 15 to 20 years away.
That said, I am not recommending “Abundance” as a must read for the Cybersecurity Canon Project today. The ideas that the authors discuss will not improve your current defensive posture. But, if the authors are correct, exponential technologies will significantly impact how we all deploy security technology in the very near future. If you are intrigued by the abundance concept, this is the book for you.
Jim Collins’ book, Great by Choice, focuses on seven pairs of similar companies between 1972 and 2002. Seven of the companies, the 10Xers, cumulativelJim Collins’ book, Great by Choice, focuses on seven pairs of similar companies between 1972 and 2002. Seven of the companies, the 10Xers, cumulatively outperformed their comparison companies in terms of stock returns by a factor of 35%. The point of the book is to determine why these 10Xers wildly succeeded in a time of chaos and upheaval while other companies who experienced the same or similar situation did not.
Collins describes five characteristics that distinguish 10Xer companies from their comparison companies:
• Level five ambition • The 20 Mile March • Firing Bullets then Canon Balls • Leading above the death line • Leveraging a return on luck
He uses anecdotes to illuminate these guiding concepts and skewers five entrenched business myths: successful leaders are not necessarily bold risk-seeking visionaries, innovation is not the primary source of success, moving the fastest in times of crisis is not always the best solution, radical change on the outside does not require radical change on the inside, and finally successful leaders do not get more good luck than their unsuccessful counterparts.
Mr. Collins and his co-authors are scientists divining new concepts about how business works by looking at the data. The data suggests that your company can explode past your competitors by as much as 35% in terms of stock returns by adopting the ideas presented in this book. ...more
This is a fabulous book for all IT and InfoSec professionals. I would say it is a must read if you are an aspiring CIO/CISO/CTO/CSO. I would definatelThis is a fabulous book for all IT and InfoSec professionals. I would say it is a must read if you are an aspiring CIO/CISO/CTO/CSO. I would definately hand the book to senior executives in any organization as a way to have them re-think their idea of what IT can do for company. ...more
Loading...
