Inflection Point
I was listening to a friend at a conference last week and he said that the US is at an inflection point.
Andrew S. Grove (one of the founders of Intel) famously is credited for the phrase, “Only the paranoid survive,” which became the title of his book where he talked about inflection points. In the preface of “Only the Paranoid Survive” Andy Grove wrote: “… a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.” Mr. Grove also had a nice chart showing a business at an inflection point either dropping to the bottom or reaching new heights. So is the United States at an inflection point? I would say yes indeed, but the frightening fact is that we might be headed towards the downward spiral of the inflection curve. After World War 2 the United States was able to take a leadership role in the global economy and we have remained in that role more than 60 years. The first chink in our armor came in the seventies with the growth of manufacturing in Asia and continues with outsourcing of intellectual capital throughout the world. What frightens me is our lack of focus on what is important. We spend billions on unwinnable wars and have allowed our education system to fall into shambles. Exporting low-value manufacturing is one thing, but not creating the best engineers, artists, designers, researchers, inventors, and teachers is unconscionable. We need to train the best to be the best. Instead of spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan, spend billions on schools. Teaching should be a potential career choice of our best and brightest. Make it hard to be a teacher, hard to stay a teacher and pay them obscene amounts of money. We are at an inflection point…it is just that we are heading the wrong way. To continue to quote Andy Grove, “…strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.” We have a chance to radically change the world. No other country has the economic might and infrastructure to take back the world economic leadership. If we focus, we can dominate the future of technology, biology, nanotechnology, solar, and medicine. The choice is ours. Focus on being the creators, the innovators, and scholars. We should be the first country who no longer needs fossil fuels. We should be the best provider of medicine and health. The best creations in technology, biology and nanotechnology should be from the United States. Like your mother always told you, make right choices.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I find this opinion to be true for my experiences. I deal with Asia on a daily basis and it is unfortunate that our US systems do not produce the same combination of intellectual drive and work ethic that the young Entrepreneurs of the Asian regions possess.
I hope we can get our footing back and keep at least the intellectual property and capitalism ideas flowing so we can inspire the unity of the two worlds. This combination of East and West strenghts will, in my opinion, fuel the global economy and have everyone succeed.
Thanks for the insights…CJ