On the Twitter stream during Interesting South last week, there were a couple of comments which I would like to reply to. While I’d much prefer to debate points of view in person, there was no time in the conference format for a Q&A session.Β Secondly the people that made the comments didn’t come and chat during the breaks so I thought I’d answer them here to start an online conversation instead.
Firstly, Mark Pesce remarked on Twitter that I gave “the standard creative destruction talk. And no Marc did not invent the browser.”
In response:
- I agree that my presentation is in line with the underlying tenant of creative destruction.Β However my point is that increasingly the innovations that lead to industry disruption do not come from within corporations – they come from people on the fringes.Β And as organisations become increasingly digitalised they are more and more susceptible to being blindsided by one person working on their own, hence the examples I presented of Shawn Fanning (Napster) and Marc Andressen (the web browser)
- This leads me to Marks second point about who invented the web browser. When I refer to Marc Andressen as the inventor of the web browser, I am referring to the browser as we know it today.Β This means that it has integrated graphics and text. There were text browsers around prior to Mosiac, but I’d argue that for the vast majority of people a web browser minus graphics isn’t a web browser at all.Β I have been online since the early 90s, and I clearly recall downloading and running the first version of Mosaic. It was revolutionary. The fine details of this point could be debated for a long time, but for clarity see the Wikipedia entry.
Secondly Adrian Farouk commented “how on earth does roger know that there is a strain of corn that can sweat oil?? What books does he read?”
Apologies if you missed my commentary around this statement Adrian, but this did not come from a book.Β It was a statement of fact by the Chief Scientific Officer of one of the worlds largest agricultural biotechnology companies.
The statement was made during a Shell Technology Futures session and as we run these events under Chatham House rule, I cannot give you his name or company.
Given that he runs a global team of a few hundred people whose scientific qualifications read like eye charts, I have a tendancy to belive that he’s quite credible when he talks about corn that sweats oil.
But Adrian is right about one thing –Β you won’t read about this in any books.Β Not yet anyway.
thank you so much for presenting- you certainly provided a load of food for thought!