Tag: disruption

Manufactured Rebellion

Silicon Valley.

The string of suburbs nestled toward the bottom of the San Francisco Bay is where the titans of computing, the Internet, and social media are based. It’s where a glut of venture capital and private equity firms have set up shop.

It might seem this sun-speckled stretch of California paradise has always been the epicenter of technology. But back in the early 1980s, the seat of power was 3,000 miles east.

You see, back then, Steve Jobs wasn’t a household name. Elon Musk was a secondary school student in South Africa. Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born yet.

Business computing was king. And there was but one behemoth in business computing — IBM.

The sleepy suburban enclave of Armonk — some 35 miles north of New York City — was the heart of IBM’s corporate functions. It’s where the accountants maintained their balance sheets. It’s where the financial analysts did their modeling. It’s where executives maintained their cushy offices.

But not all of IBM’s operations were based there. Some 1,300 miles south in Boca Raton, another unit was hard at work.

These employees paid little attention to the details of what was going on up in Armonk. And the bigwigs at headquarters had precious little line of sight into what was happening down in Florida.

This was all by design.

The Boca unit was IBM’s skunkworks. It was the space where IBM-ers could innovate, free of the constraints of the IBM brand banner. It was where IBM could attempt to disrupt its own business.

IBM wasn’t the first company to try its hand at skunkworks.

Lockheed Martin introduced the concept as it developed weapons in secrecy during World War II. Over the years, other companies followed its lead.

However, IBM had a novel use for its skunkworks setup — Manufactured Rebellion.

Yes, the team in Boca was made up of IBM employees aiming to disrupt IBM’s business.

The company knew that its stronghold was far from assured over time. Technology changes. Consumption patterns shift.

If IBM were to wait before reacting to these changes, it would be too late. The only shot at longevity would be to stay on the cutting edge. To diversify the company portfolio to include the innovations of tomorrow and the strategic strengths of today.

That’s what Manufactured Rebellion was all about. And it yielded the Personal Computer for IBM.

We might overlook that point these days, with Apple and Microsoft dominating the PC market. But the skunkworks likely helped IBM stay relevant for far longer than the company otherwise would have been.

And thanks to a Harvard Business Review writeup, the IBM skunkworks continues to cast a long shadow.

Indeed, Manufactured Rebellion is all the rage in the technology world. Companies left and right are trying to disrupt themselves, even as they reach the pinnacle of success.

This is how Apple ended up making smartphones. It’s what got Netflix into streaming. It’s why Google’s parent company has a division called “other bets,” fueled by an incubator called X.

It’s also the reason companies in other industries — automaking, hospitality, and finance — are rebranding themselves as tech companies.

Manufactured Rebellion is all around us. And to some degree, within us.

You see, these companies have an outsize influence on our behavior. Consider it the halo effect.

Starbucks once convinced us to pay $4 for a cup of coffee. Disney persuaded us that happily ever after was inevitable. And Apple, Google, and Netflix have directed us to shake up today in favor of tomorrow.

So, we seek to disrupt ourselves.

We cast off old routines. We reinvent our style. We shake up our professional identity.

We do all this for the same reason as IBM. To stay ahead of the curve.

But are we getting more than we bargained for?

Early in the film Catch Me If You Can, FBI agent Carl Hanratty enters a French prison, seeking to take custody of a prisoner there.

The prisoner — Frank Abagnale, Jr. — had pulled off a string of confidence crimes. Hanratty’s mission was to bring him back to the United States to face charges.

Abagnale had been a confident and quick-witted man throughout his crime spree. But in the dark confines of a jail cell, he appeared young and frightened.

After making a feeble attempt at an escape, he made a frail request to Hanratty.

Take me home, Carl.

Abagnale had brought all kinds of Manufactured Rebellion into his life. He had posed as a lawyer and an airline pilot. He had forged millions of dollars worth of checks. And he had stayed one step ahead of the law throughout most of these escapades.

But now, he had been stripped of all that. Reacquainted with his real identity, all he wanted to do was go home.

Most of us are not confidence artists like Abagnale. Our journey probably won’t include a stop in a French jail.

But we can relate to him a bit too viscerally.

You see, our penchant for self-disruption has its benefits.

Switching jobs yields increased earning power. Moving homes yields enhanced surroundings. Changing diets yields improved health.

But Manufactured Rebellion also has its costs.

If we keep changing for change’s sake, we start chasing ghosts. We’re always in pursuit. Never comfortable. Never satisfied.

We lose sight of who we are on the quest to find out who we could be.

This is a basic fact. And yet, it always seems to catch us off guard — just as it did Abagnale.

It shouldn’t.

For despite its bravado, Manufactured Rebellion often fails to deliver. For every Netflix stream or iPhone, there are dozens of failed corporate pivots. Heck, even the flagship PC from IBM’s skunkworks ultimately fell short.

We can’t expect our success rate to be any better. For we are human.

Unlike billion-dollar corporations, we bear the brunt of disruption. We feel every bit of the ups and downs.

And while brand irrelevance is disastrous for any company, the loss of our identity can be downright tragic.

So, let’s turn this ship around. Let’s stop needlessly putting ourselves in jeopardy. And let’s be more thoughtful about when and where we change things up.

This might not give us the sugar rush of Manufactured Rebellion. But it spares us the inevitable crash that follows.

And that’s not nothing.

Hackbuster

Not long ago, I stumbled upon a strange article on the Internet.

The title read: Dopamine Fasting Is Silicon Valley’s Hot New Trend.

Normally, the words Hot New Trend would repel me like pepper spray. I’m not on the cutting edge, and am not looking to hang out with the cool kids.

Yet, I found myself compelled to click on this particular article. For something in the title just didn’t add up.

After all, dopamine is a central part of our existence. The neurotransmitter evokes feelings of pleasure throughout our bodies. That sensation can be found when we complete that big work project, when our favorite team wins a big game— or when we’re scrolling through the social media feeds on our smartphone.

Why would tech executives — the stewards of such dopamine-inducing platforms as social networks and smartphones — refuse to eat their own dog food? Why would they subject themselves to prolonged periods of masochistic misery?

It only took me five short paragraphs to find out.

It turns out the hoodie-clad overlords of Silicon Valley are adopting dopamine fasting as a health hack. They’re using it to recalibrate their bodies to meet target metrics. And they’re equating the act of hitting their numbers to having optimal health.

Health hacks like these are often billed as course corrections. They’re often considered a rapid regression to the mean.

But in essence, they’re shortcuts. They’re the fast lane to a desirable destination.

This is why even the most counterintuitive hacks — like denying oneself any sources of pleasure —can spread like wildfire. The promise of a craveable outcome and the pull of social pressure can make these hacks appear to be sensible options.

Yet, all too often, appearances can be deceiving.

I am not a fan of hacks.

I never have been. And I probably never will be.

I don’t feel this way because of anything the hacks themselves contain. Sure, they might seem absurd at times. But that absurdity amuses me.

No, my issue with hacks comes from their underlying premise.

Hacks find their greatest power at the intersection of impatience and snobbishness. For their doting audiences seek both instant gratification and elite status.

With hacks, it’s not enough to simply to get an advantage. It’s essential to have an edge that others don’t.

While everyone else is stuck in neutral, we’re going full speed ahead. While everyone else is fighting the same old battles, we’re above the fray.

This thinking is as much about exclusivity as it is efficiency. And this perspective eats at me.

Why must a hack be Zero Sum? Why does it matter what information others have access to? And why should we consider ourselves to be better than others — simply on the merits of achieving something more optimally?

There really is no good answer.

I believe in  incrementalism.

Like a ship headed for the horizon, I feel progress is best made one inch at a time.

This is not an exciting viewpoint. But it is a well-practiced one.

According to the Diffusion of Innovation Curve, most people don’t rush toward exciting products as they’re launched. Instead, they wait for others to take the leap along with them.

Moving ahead at the speed of the masses is incrementalism at its finest. And by and large, this theory has helped us evolve over the millennia.

Even so, we crave something more than putting one foot in front of the other.

We don’t merely want to walk. We want to soar.

And so, we find ourselves entranced by flash. We seek out the boldest, brightest and loudest concepts. And we throw the full weight of our aspirations at them.

These actions run contrary to our cautious nature. But they provide us what our heart yearns for.

Of course, a proof of concept can ease this shift from incrementalism to disruption. And our society is full of such examples.

Perhaps the oldest of these is the very foundation of the United States of America. While we might take the concept of a self-ruling democracy for granted these days, it was relatively nascent in 1776. And the idea of splitting from a presiding kingdom was downright unheard of.

America’s success in both declaring and defending its independence was a shock to the system. It was an early case of disruptive innovation.

Many other disruptions have followed in the subsequent centuries. Many of these disruptions — such as the Model T automobile and the personal computer  — grew from self-serving roots to gain widespread adoption.

This pattern has helped grow our sense of individualism. It’s caused us to think of our own short-term needs, in lieu of the longer-term implications for society.

In the cases of America, the automobile or the computer, the desirable short-term advantages we’ve enjoyed haven’t been overshadowed by undesirable long-term effects. But in many other situations, a less optimal scenario has come to bear.

This is a critical point, because hacks tend to thrive under the guise of disruption. They promise us short-term benefits and shrug off the long-term view entirely.

This perspective may seem desirable to us in the moment. But over the long haul, it’s extremely dangerous.

 

Don’t build on shaky ground.

This proverb is as prescient as it is straightforward. For centuries, settlers — perhaps excluding some in California — have taken it as gospel.

A solid foundation means everything. Our homes, our families, our lives — they all depend on stability.

We don’t gain this stability by rocking the boat. By making big waves and leaving others in our wake.

We gain it by working meticulously, methodically and collectively.

I truly believe that the greatest achievements in life are not the result of short-term, selfish thinking. They are the result of long-term, selfless action.

When we aim for immediate personal satisfaction, we only set ourselves up for future disappointment. But when we work together toward a common objective, we have the potential to lift up all of society.

This work might not be glamorous. It might not be hair-raising or pulse-quickening.

But it can bring a lasting satisfaction.

And that is something no hack could ever match.

On Disruption

On a recent ride in a New York City taxi, I asked the driver how he was doing.

“Not great,” he admitted. “Business has been slow. Uber is killing us.”

He then detailed all the ways the rideshare giant has made his job more difficult, his taxi medallion less valuable.

The troubles stretch far beyond Uber’s cut-rate prices, he explained. The allure of easy fares has flooded the streets with competing drivers — many of whom have a poor grip on New York geography and get lost constantly as a result.

Some of these confused Uber drivers ferry people around as a side hustle; others drive after getting fired from their day jobs. Either way, the result is the same. More traffic congestion, more accidents and more headaches for those who have decades of experience driving the street in the familiar yellow sedans.

When I mentioned that city leaders could take action against this new wave of rideshare drivers, the cab driver told me they already tried to.

“Uber won the court case,” he said. “They’re here to stay.”

My mind took me back home to Dallas for a moment. I thought about the new logo I’ve seen plastered on the back of most taxis there recently.

The logo is for the Curb app, which allows customers to hail a cab from their smartphone. It’s a neat innovation, but in the Ridesharing Era, it’s a day late and a dollar short. A solution that doesn’t fully account for the problem.

You see, Uber didn’t take off by perfecting the taxi experience. By making it cheaper or more efficient.

No, it took off because it reinvented the entire way we approach travel. Just like Airbnb reinvented the entire way we approach hospitality, or Apple reinvented the way we use our mobile phones.

This is what disruption is all about. It’s why it works time and again.

The Curb app shows just how blind disrupted industries are to the siege outside their windows. It underscores why we actively seek out the next disruption. Why we antagonize The Way It Is in favor of The Way It Could Be.

Yet, we must be careful with this approach. Because much gets sacrificed in the crossfire.

No one is shedding a tear for the demise of payphones or CDs. These items were bulky and inconvenient. Using them required an annoying amount of planning and effort. Their disruptor — smartphones with streaming capabilities — proved to be far superior.

Yet, we should be more cautious when evaluating the impact of the Rideshare Era. Yes, catching an Uber can be more enjoyable or affordable than taking a cab. But by riding the wave of disruption, we leave many cab drivers in the dust.

These drivers have worked tirelessly to make a living for themselves, and made huge sacrifices just to get that opportunity. They’ve proven their worth — only to see the rug pulled out from under them by an upstart who will accept nearly anyone as a driver.

There are no fairy tale endings in this story. For as we rush to dismantle the structures of old, good people get sucked into the maelstrom. And there’s no life preserver to rescue them.

This is the cost of disruption. It’s real and it’s raw. And we are directly responsible for causing it, through complicity alone.

This is a discomforting reality to face. But face it, we must.

So, what can we do to fill this void? To reconcile our participation in the modern-day Torch and Pitchfork Mobs?

We can start by being more conscientious. By looking wholeheartedly at the toll our seemingly altruistic ambitions bring. And by doing what we can to ease the burden placed upon those we displace, such as venerable cab drivers.

This approach will get us out of our comfort zone. But it will also ensure that no one is left behind.

And that’s the type of disruption that can truly change the world for the better.