Did Obama Meet the Wrong Big Wave Surfers?

It was reported that during his recent trip to the West Coast, President Obama had

dinner with a dozen Silicon Valley executives. The appearance of the technological and

financial captains of industry such as John Doer (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers),

Carol Bartz (Yahoo), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and John Chambers (Cisco) set the press

wires buzzing. While these people would all be considered at the top of the tech

industry heap, perhaps the President was meeting with people whose technology and the

waves they created have already passed instead of meeting with people who are creating

and forming the new waves that will rock the tech world.

Ken Thurber, author of Big Wave Surfing: Extreme Technology Development, Management,

Marketing and Investing, sees these companies as mature - "some like Apple (Steve Jobs

was reportedly seen at that dinner meeting) will surely impact the American economy as

it moves forward, but the real action is forming out at sea with new surfers and

technologies such as nanotechnology, wind-powered cars, extremely fast Exascale

Computers and powerful new lasers being developed by the military. The future lies

with serial big wave entrepreneur surfers like Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, SpaceX

and runs Tesla motors, which looks to revolutionize the electric car industry, if they

don't run out of cash first."

Thurber sees companies such as Oracle and Yahoo as the old world order and the new

surfers like Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal), Tim Westergren (Pandora) or Jack

Dorsey  (Square & Twitter) as the coming Big Wave Surfers.

Thurber goes on to say," As these new Surfers and others like them go, so goes the

future of the American economy. Like any surfers there will be wipeouts and winners

and losers, but without embracing them and what they represent in the innovation

economy, America will be in for trying economic times and profound structural changes

will occur in American society. Understanding of the current innovation economy will

not be found by meeting with the current captains of industry. The understanding to

forge the nation's innovation strategy will only be formed by meeting with the current

entrepreneurs who are trying to spot and ride the next big wave!"

About the Author: Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D., is a renowned computer architect and has

developed technology and systems worth billions of dollars. He developed the concept

of "technology big wave surfing" to empower readers to understand and harness the

opportunity of an ever-changing technological world.