Big Yellow Taxi
The wisdom of Joni Mitchell: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” We're losing much now. We need perspective.
Before moving to Australia at the end of last century, I assumed (in my ignorance) that America was known for defining popular culture around the world: Hollywood, pop music, sports. I wasn’t counting on Australia’s strong entertainment game (popular at the time: Nicole Kidman—but not her husband Tom Cruise, Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, INXS, Midnight Oil, and the evergreen AC/DC). Aussies laughed at ‘American football’ with its protective gear, and when they talked about ‘the pitch,’ the topic was cricket.
Judging by comments I received when Australians heard my American accent, the country of my birth was most famous (infamous) for its gun culture. Open carry in those days might be driving with an open beer in the cab of your truck or perhaps a rifle in a rear window rack: we had not yet arrived at the time when good ole’ boys strutted around retail stores wearing semi-automatic pistols to intimidate other shoppers. Even so, Australian tourists in the US were appalled to see weapons displayed in pickups. Australians recoiled at the collective shrug given by US politicians after Columbine. A single mass shooting in Port Arthur had prompted the conservative1 Australian government to enact strict gun laws. Its gun buyback program was wrapping up when we arrived.
More positively, the US was known for two things:2 customer service and innovation. I often heard praise for the friendliness of American hospitality and retail workers. Australians who had traveled to the US were in awe of the generous customer service policies of companies like Nordstrom and L.L.Bean.
Although Americans like to think of themselves as friendly, they don’t corner the market on niceness. What was different between the two countries were the economics of hospitality and retail. The American tipped or commissioned employee isn’t paid a living wage, and is expected to perform to make up the difference in tips or commissions.
The companies most often praised for their customer service policies were able to generate profits despite spending a greater percentage on customer satisfaction because the size of the US market could generate more gross margin dollars on a lower gross margin percent. The economics of Australia were different; the customer experience was different.
Innovation, however, seemed to highlight a positive character trait in the nation—the names of Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford were seeded into the history taught to every American school child. In the late 20th century, Silicon Valley was spinning up tech companies whose products were starting to change the way people lived around the world. It was hard to overestimate the power of American innovation.
Thirty years later, even Americans don’t think of themselves as friendly and eager to get along. Quite the opposite. We’re appalled at the nastiness of public discourse. Gun culture has metastasized into gun worship and wide-scale armed intimidation. And innovation? Where is that?
Consider this list of innovations:
From the vantage of the turn of the century, we were awe-struck at the rate of innovation. Not every technical breakthrough originated in Silicon Valley, and much or it relied on prior innovation,3 but the sum was still impressive. Billionaires whose names are now well-known owe their wealth to these innovations as well as the funds contributed by public and private investors who understood the future value of the technology.
We call these businessmen innovators, yet they’re satisfied with working existing seams of value, primarily AI. They don’t deserve credit for the innovations they brought to market. We can acknowledge Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos for the skills they brought to starting up successful businesses, but they don’t deserve acclaim for the innovations that were invented by others. Amazon’s first computer programmer, Shel Kaphan, who co-wrote the first Amazon website, 1-Click, and the site’s customer review software, ended up leaving the company after being shunted aside by Bezos. Kaphan lost his shares in 1999. The work of high-profile technology business owners isn’t to innovate but to monetize the innovations of others. It shouldn’t be surprising that they don’t continue to innovate, since they never started.
When he wasn’t painting masterpieces like The Last Supper or Salvator Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci invented things. Here’s a partial list:
Anemometer (instrument that measures the speed of wind) Flying machine Helicopter (aerial screw) Parachute 33-barreled organ (weapon) Armoured car (precursor to tank) Giant crossbow Triple barrel canon Clock Colossus Ideal city Robotic knight Self-propelled cart Scuba gear Revolving bridge Double hull
Inventors invent. They have curious minds. They delight in solving problems. It is their life’s work, from which they never willingly retire, because how do you make your mind stop thinking?
Profit, not curiosity, animates the minds that direct R&D. The tremendous size and pervasiveness of the technologies launched earlier in our century inhibit disruption. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon4 act as behemoth gatekeepers that dictate what technology will move forward and which won’t. Market forces mean nothing to the all-in push for AI. We will have it, whether we want it or not.
Such was once the landscape of consumer aviation, until a sassy startup, Southwest Airlines, managed to break through. It faced immense hurdles that it cleared by means of creativity. The company had to persuade customers to drive to a secondary airport and accept an open seating policy; it had to maneuver past regulation so that it could undercut competitors’ prices.
Southwest’s success appeared unlikely at the time, although it would later be packaged as a business school case study: treating employees well creates a great customer experience that drives loyalty, which delivers sustainable growth. Unlike the ground floor employees at Amazon, Southwest’s early employees became rich along with the company, which rewarded them with profit-sharing. Many of them continued to work with the company long after they no longer had the financial need. They just liked their work.
It may be impossible to appreciate your own strengths and understand them objectively. America once rewarded invention with its patent protections and massive trade market: inventors thrived and consumers became accustomed to a steady diet of novelty. That heyday seemed as if it would never end. It did. Paradise is well and truly paved when you can’t escape the tyranny of a technology being forced upon you.5
Another6 eloquent Canadian poet/songwriter reminds us that there is a crack in everything. Green shoots find their way through crevices. Curious minds cannot stay still.
“We are so privileged to be able to gather in moments like this, when so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos.
So ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” 7
Leonard Cohen
Ellie’s Corner
I wish I could take joy from each day, as Ellie does when we simply pay attention to her.
She can also be impatient, which she is as I type. Dramatic sighs. Deep breaths to let me know she’s waiting. Why pay attention to that screen when she’s right here, right now?
Why indeed?
Thanks for reading,
The PM, John Howard, led the Liberal Party in Australia. He was a conservative. Words mean different things in different cultures.
Again, based unscientifically on my personal experience with Australians.
Modern AI R&D dates back to mid-century and Alan Turing; today’s Large Language Model version of AI is a descendant. You might notice that I didn’t list Tesla, which is just a more commercially successful venture in a long history of electric vehicles. I consider Tesla a commercial success, not an innovative success.
You may opt out of Prime and the ‘everything store,’ but you cannot opt out of trading with companies who utilize Amazon Web Services, whose server farm services are pervasive.
Try to avoid AI. Just try.
The first was Joni Mitchell. This is a Canadian-forward essay, published on election day in Canada.
Please watch the video below to the end, when Cohen pays homage to every musician onstage with him, each of them bowing in mutual respect and admiration. It fills my heart.
As a society we tend to treat new technologies and innovations as ‘miracles’ when they are nothing of the sort? We tend to treat those who get to brand themselves as the bringers of the New, New Thing (Micheal Lewis book) as a kind of priestly class, like the Greek gods of old. When all the while, it’s people working in the background priming the pumps and fitting the cogs who, little by little, make progress until something new comes into being. We are living in Oz, and men behind the curtain are just monkeys thumping their chests and throwing their feces about for others to pick up and dispose of.