In the 2013 movie Her, Theodore Twombly, a lonely writer, falls in love with a digital assistant designed to meet his every need. She sorts emails, helps get a book published, provides personal advice, and ultimately becomes his girlfriend. The assistant, Samantha, is AI software capable of learning at an astonishing pace.
Apple is facing accusations that it copied Chinese innovations in the iPhone 7. Indeed, China’s smartphone manufacturers released dual-camera systems and handsets without headphone jacks long before Apple did. And the stickers and animations that Apple is adding to iMessage look like a direct knockoff from China’s WeChat. This is quite a twist from the days when Apple accused the Chinese of copying its inventions. The reality is that America’s most innovative company is no longer the world’s most innovative company. Entrepreneurs all over the world are producing innovations that rival what you see in Silicon Valley.
After three decades of dramatic growth, China’s manufacturing engine has largely stalled. With rising salaries, labor unrest, environmental devastation and intellectual property theft, China is no longer an attractive place for Western companies to move their manufacturing. Technology has also eliminated the labor cost advantage, so companies are looking for ways to bring their high-value manufacturing back to the United States and Europe.
Apple reported lackluster earnings on Tuesday as the company’s iPhone sales continued to slide. The numbers make it clear that the future of the consumer products behemoth is no longer in its consumer products. The fix? Apple should release a version of iOS for non-Apple devices. This suggestion will seem like heresy to the brand’s loyalists, but it may be necessary for the success of the company.
“The Soviet Union I left behind was a dictatorship but the workplace was a democracy; America may be free but the workplace is a dictatorship” said Len Erlikh after I hired him at First Boston (now Credit Suisse First Boston) in 1986. Being of the Jewish faith, he had fled the USSR’s religious persecution.
A trait shared by the fastest growing and most disruptive companies in history—Google, Amazon, Uber, AirBnb, and eBay—is that they aren’t focused on selling products, they are building platforms. The ability to leverage the network effects of a platform is something that the technology industry learned long ago—and perfected. It is what gives Silicon Valley an unfair advantage over competitors in every industry; something that is becoming increasingly important as all information becomes digitized.
When I started writing about the gender disparity I saw in Silicon Valley, I took intense fire from the boys club. I received a barrage of hate mail, immature online chatter and personal attacks on me over Twitter. A handful of prominent investors called my writings garbage; one called me a loser and a fraud. They could get away with this because such frat-boy behavior was considered acceptable in Silicon Valley.
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here.
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here.
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here.
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here.
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here
This originally appeared on LinkedIn. You can follow Vivek Wadhwa here
