Tom Siebel (from fame of Siebel Systems) identifies the next opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to change the world. Using surfing as an anology, these are the waves in the horizon—you have to paddle hard and fast now before it reaches you. The IT wave has already floated us far. And although IT will still play a large role in solving these problems, these are the broader world problems that need to be solved (technology is just the conduit for the solution).
The big problems are .. *drumroll*:
- food
- water
- healthcare
- energy
Counterintuitively for most technologists, these are all “lower in the stack” type problems. Why? Because more people are living longer/child mortality rates improving (thanks to advances in health care), hence an aging population – with inadequate health care infrastructure, especially in China.
Here are some notes from the Mark Logic CEO’s blog (that I mostly cut-and-pasted here, thanks to Dave Kellogg for actually transcribing):
- He (Tom Siebel) did a long riff contrasting the period from 1980 to 2000 with what he anticipates in the period from 2010 to 2030.
- The 1980 to 2000 period was a paradise of government policies, efficient capital markets, and a free flow of capital to information technology that ultimately created a $1T information technology industry.
- IT growth was 17% CAGR from 1980 to 2000. From 2000 it grows, he says, with GDP at a rate more like 3%. “The party here is over.”
- “It’s done. Tell me the next step that’s a replacement technology. Right now it’s all bells and whistles.”
- The big picture from 2010 to 2030, he says, is (1) increased government regulation, (2) exponential population growth, (3) aging population, (4) increased demand for healthcare (of which 85% of an individual’s lifetime consumption is spent in the last year of life), and (5) energy scarcity.
- It took from 8000 BC to 1750 AD to grow the world population to 1B. In 2008, it’s 6.5B. In 2028 it will be 9B. (Says the guy next to me: “and they’re all going to need to buy things — how is this bad?”)
- These trends make for the following opportunities: (1) food, (2) water, (3) energy, and (4) healthcare.
- Per-capita energy population is increasing exponential. So if you combine exponential population growth with exponential per-capita energy consumption, you end up with energy demand that is — pardon the expression — exponential squared.
- He then discussed the concept of peak oil, an idea that I’d heard of but that I hadn’t known was postulated in the 1950s by an engineer at Shell. By 2020/2030, says Siebel, this gets to be a real problem.
- He then said we have two choices: drill / drill / drill or invent / invent / invent.
- He then discussed two initiatives he’s working on: (1) an Energy-Free Home Challenge that is soon to be formally announced, and (2) a new company called C3 that he was involved in founding.
- The Energy-Free Home Challenge is a contest with $20M in prizes paid for by the Siebel Foundation (2007 annual report here). The goal is to find a way to build houses that consume net zero energy at the end of a year, built with no more expense than traditional construction methods.
- C3 (which I think is related to the acronym carbon-conscious consumer) is a new company, run by Siebel veteran Pat House, that will make enterprise software to help companies manage their carbon footprint. The company started by calling together a panel of 29 experts during the summer of 2008. “Deliberations were concluded 12/08.” C3 was founded last month, in 1/09. Operations will begin in 2/09. The product spec will be completed by summer 09. And — if I heard correctly — they will have demonstrable product one quarter later in fall 09. (And one heck of a development team if they can actually build a product in a quarter.)
- C3’s goal is to help companies “monitor, mitigate, and monetize” their carbon footprint. I tried for about 15 minutes to find a website for the firm and failed. If you find one, let me know via a comment and I’ll link it here.
- Almost to the point of comedy Siebel strained to not position C3 as an information technology company, despite the fact that it will sell enterprise software. “C3 is an energy tech company.” “IT is incidental to C3.” “C3 will not have an IT rate of growth.” (How quickly they turn.)
Check the entire podcast for the entire story with stats.
Tom Siebel – Emerging Opportunities in a Post IT Marketplace
