A Cautiously Optimistic View from the Summit

I have struggled with ways to describe the rewards and frustrations of having a technology company located in a small town in Ohio. I have written about my home town of Akron, which was once a center of American innovation and in my experience still has some of the most under-appreciated and talented engineers I have come across. There are however at least a few times per month when I find myself fighting an uphill battle against political complacency, class stagnation, and delusion that can all be poisonous. The struggle is not so much about how I feel, as this is fairly clear. The facts can be found anywhere. Akron, and the even smaller town of Cuyahoga Falls where Nanotronics Imaging (the tech company I am CEO of) is actually located, has had a declining population for my entire adult life. Large industries once sustained it not only as a manufacturing hub, but also with research centers for companies like Goodyear, Firestone, BF Goodrich, ABB, Timken, Lockheed Martin and many more. As the population got smaller so did the opportunities for those scientists and those skilled workers, leaving in its place the support structure of universities, hospitals, stores and excessive real estate inventory. Though I live in New York, I have long recognized this as an opportunity. Where there were great engineering jobs, there are still great engineers. Where there are Science and Engineering programs in universities, there are students graduating who already know the region. This must be the story of much of rust belt America and the European counterparts to it. Detroit is even a more famous example, but I have never worked or lived in Detroit, so I will keep my comments to Northeast Ohio, where my company and my emotions are still so tied. Even with these feeling of the obvious advantages, I have been unable to fully understand why other tech companies don’t see this. I now realize that it is harder than I had expected for reasons that economists and sociologists have understood for centuries.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) , the first political economist, understood the Akron issue before Akron was an issue to be had. Most importantly to this point, Smith assumed that a society thrives by access to technology and the ability to trade it.  A contemporary book by Matt Ridley called “The Rational Optimist”, gives an encouraging and sensitive account of how communities can thrive, and of the pitfalls to avoid that can lead to death. Ridley speaks about the long history of Tasmania, which went through a nearly 7000 year regression in technological ability, and therefore in longevity, starvation and vulnerabilities to the elements, which are indeed huge problems to deal with in the absence of good tools. The Tasmanians, until 10,000 BC were connected with the world, where large populations of different backgrounds could learn from each other and help each other to develop new tools, and even inspire art. The reason for this may seem a bit cynical, but it is more romantic to me than the words will first appear. The reason why it was possible to create new specialty tools was because the market for those tools was large enough. There is the purely commercial aspect of course, but also the fact that creation and invention is meaningless in isolation. With a world to share with, there is a world who will share with you, and therefore there is a vibrant technological economy. The 7000 year regression only occurred when removal from a growing active cross culture trade was cut off.

 This technological age is one of early agriculture, not one of industrialization, and certainly not one where mass international social networks connect the planet through small devices that can be carried around. Still the "Tasmania Problem"  (as Ridley describes it in his book) serves as somewhat of an analogy and even a warning for Ohio and places like it. While I don’t hold out our technology company as being transformative to a region, the idea of it could be. Ohio needs to do everything in its power to avoid Tasmania style regression, and the way that countless cases in history have shown is that technology, inclusion and collaboration with others outside of the village, city, state or country are crucial. This also means collaboration outside of the discipline of expertise in a specific community.

There are many times when I seem to be in rather bad taste in my criticism of Summit County, the Ohio County that encompasses Akron and the smaller town of Cuyahoga Falls where Nanotronics lives. I have considered doing a whole series on these as a defensive vindication of my positions, by including Hume, Jefferson, Paine, Tocqueville, Voltaire, and maybe even the Dali Lama to throw people off a little, but just by mentioning these names here, I am being pretentious enough. It is not just what these other people say, but how the community is feeling. More important to this blog though is how I am feeling, which is that the efforts made by some in the region to be international, are lost in the blind and even dangerous religion of a new type of community based spirituality which could be defined as hyperlocality. I made that word up and it may not be a good one, but involves the well-meaning, extremely diligent hard work of a community that has been in decline. This group is trying to redefine itself by local businesses that appeal to other locals. This by its nature is circular.  In the case of Summit County this means businesses, organizations and individuals who support the only remaining industries, which are also support businesses. More specifically I will propose two stories, both of which won’t use specific companies’ names, and are not 100% “based on a true story”, but are very close. They are as least as true as I understand, and have been represented to me. As you will see with my titles, and descriptions (I tell these in the first person though neither are meant to be a retelling of my own history), neither are meant as attacks, as I respect people and organizations that are following both of these. You will also see that I think however that despite my respect for the intentions of both, I find one of these stories highly flawed and bad for the county (and counties like Summit around the world).

Story of Summit County #1 – a story a of organic sustainability

Though the tire companies have left, the city of Akron has never looked nicer, and we are doing everything we can to keep it that way.  When I grew up Akron was a dirty place. Pollution was rampant. I used to have carbon black that came from tire company smoke stacks on my wind shield. That said my family worked for those companies, and that is why I could afford a college education. Those tire companies leaving was hard for a while, and many people moved out of Summit County as the jobs left. Luckily for us in the wake of that exodus were 2 very good hospitals and within 50 miles 10 good Universities. Really though I don’t need to look 50 miles out to see how my generation is benefiting from a renewed Summit County. The university grounds are cleaner and nicer than ever, and professors are still living in our city. The hospitals are also still very good. What I and my friends are doing is making sure that we are taking this now ecofriendly city (since the industry pollution is long gone), and creating local businesses that are sustainable and attractive. We have organic farms that use no biotech. We sell these in local specialty stores. We have recycling programs. We oppose fracking and believe that we can have a nicer life through conservation. Though I know that I buy from places that are not local, my goal is to support these local businesses, and to create local businesses that will be supported by the others.

Story of Summit County #2- International Technology Incubator

There is enormous opportunity since the tire companies left our county, even though they were so good to our county for so many generations. The benefit has all to do with human capital, and regional legacy. Both of these things will come in handy. A far as people, we have smart, talented engineers from those businesses that left, who would still like to stay in this nice region. We also have great lawyers, doctors, and even university partners if we need them. The population is declining in numbers, which is a bad thing no matter how you look at it. The upside is that in a global economy we are no longer dependent on the growth of our own county to spur the success of our county. We can leverage the talent to create intellectual property and manufacture products and software that are not just the envy of the world, but more importantly allow us to be integral players in the world. By doing this more people may very well move to Summit County as the jobs here will not be made up only of support businesses and businesses to support the support businesses.(The latter of which I find to be putting the cart before the horse). Why do we need expensive organic food stores, which ultimately deplete wealth, (and let’s be frank, they pay wages that are only slightly better off than working at Walmart.) I look at West Orange and Menlo Park New Jersey, the two business homes of Thomas Edison that cared little about those communities’ directly, but by creating the electric light, the phonograph, the motion picture and 2000 other things, made the entire world healthier and wealthier, including those smaller towns in New Jersey. I look at San Jose, where Silicon Valley was born. The modern computer era that we all enjoy was not for the benefit of a region, and had nothing to do with thinking locally. It had to do with invention and the proliferation of those inventions. Now Silicon Valley is richer, but so are all of us, in so many ways, which are not just financial. Summit County should do the same.

As you can probably guess, I strongly support the second story. There are some in our area that are doing these things. John West, my friend and the former Director of Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute has helped us and many other companies with grand and successful national and international ambitions. There are others too of course. A rumor is that the area is courting biotech companies, which is one reason for me writing this piece now. Just as these two well-meaning people in the stories above are doing what they are claiming, part of that is a debate over biotech. This is one example where intentions are not everything. If the Organic Sustainability Akronite described above were to win, we will have more low paying, low impact organic food stores, and less lifesaving high paying biotech.

This is much more of a rant than my typical essays, and I apologize if it seems judgmental. It is making a call that I think is rational. It is not however questioning the ideals of those in story one. Well maybe some come to mind that should be called out, such as University Presidents and politicians, but that will be for another rant. Next blog will be back to science, philosophy and free jazz…

The Shrinking Tech World 2.0

I live in New York City, but like I have done for the last 13 years, spend a lot of time in Akron Ohio. Before 2008 this was because I was an owner, along with my parents and cousin, of a technology company, called Tech Pro, which made sophisticated laboratory instruments. We sold this business in 2008. I don’t mention that “sophisticated” part to in any way seem smart, clever or elitist. Instead I mention it because here is an inherent disconnect in many peoples’ minds between thinking of Ohio and technology sophistication together. I am not even sure that I don’t share some of this prejudice. I live in New York, I teach at Columbia University, and I have important collaborations for my new company Nanotronics Imaging in Silicon Valley. That said, I have just opened another office in Akron, Ohio, where we are putting together a team of programmers and engineers that I hired not because I like to be in Ohio, but because I think they are the best. I hadn’t thought about this much, as it was perfectly obvious to us at Nanotronics why we would want to do this. For one thing we had worked with some of these people before. Jeff Archer, our first hire, was an early Tech Pro employee, and he had, along with my father, developed the first data acquisition systems for polymer labs. (For more on these early Tech Pro days, and Jeff, check this out here.) Since his time at Tech Pro, Jeff has worked for ABB, and brought along some great talent with him. We then brought back two other former Tech Pro engineers. This was natural, as we all spoke similar languages of business. I also thought we lived in a post regional age, where a company, as tiny as we are, could be spread around, making decentralization not a burden, but instead a benefit. After all, why not work with the best people for your company, no matter where they are?  Also I like the idea of developing talent in places where there is not already a legacy tech culture like Silicon Valley, but instead places like Akron where the legacy of rust belt industry has already faded from the memory of currently working people. I grew up in this region for example, and my grandfather was a director for BF Goodrich Tire Company. Though the city was still full of bursts of carbon black smog when I was young, my grandfather was already retired. My father’s generation tried to redefine the Midwest, by creating these old industry upgrade type businesses. Dad and his cousin started making custom rubber, and having an independent testing lab. Finally he had Tech Pro, which extended the scope beyond Akron, and even Akron type businesses, by computerizing and automating new material testing. Tech Pro, by the time we sold, was 60% international.

My generation in general moved away. Even with all the background, and memory of these past two generations of redefinition of purpose, the action certainly did seem like it was in Silicon Valley or New York. The reason I thought this had changed is not because I consider Ohio to be vibrant, but because I think that collective memory, and some of those creative people are still there. Also, and maybe more importantly, there is good reason for them, and entrepreneurs to come to Ohio and places like it. Two things made me think of this lately, other than my own little office there. The first was MarkKvamme being put into a position by Ohio’s new governor in order to attract technology business and investment to Ohio. Kvamme is a well known successful Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, who has only two reasons that I can think of to do this: 1. great civic duty, to bring the whole country to the kind of creative and financial success seen in Silicon Valley, and 2. because he believes that it is possible for creative engineers and entrepreneurs to be trained and found in this region. This is encouraging. I must admit to being a Democrat, but this move by Ohio’s newest Republican Governor is very exciting to me, and I give both he and Kvamme a lot of credit for thinking it.

The second thing was the realization that I am still in the minority to think that we are in a post regional tech world. I was listening to the Web 2.0Summit where John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins), and Fred  Wilson (Union Square Ventures) were having as much of a debate as I am used to hearing in tech conferences. I liked it because I respect both of these guys a lot. They have enriched the Venture model so many times that Americans have remained innovative regardless of the many problems we may have had in science education. This model is changing I believe, but I was happy to hear that both Wilson and Doerr are funding so many good ideas. What surprised me, though, was that Doerr said that he felt that it was still important for a start-up to be located in the Bay area. He extended the reach from Silicon Valley all the way up to San Francisco, which I found funny, because from my perspective in New York this is all pretty much the same, as I fly into San Francisco Airport either way. Wilson made a case for New York, which as a New Yorker was nice to hear, and he did seem open to the idea that creativity could be found anywhere, that with new technology location wasn’t as important. Still, and I may be wrong, there was an assumption that tech talent was either an east coast or west coast phenomenon, with India breaking through as well. I am not sure if I even disagree completely, but I find it unfortunate, and feel that some entrepreneurs are missing out on great opportunities in places that are only an hour flight away.

I fly to a tiny Airport in Akron, drive 10 minutes in no traffic to my nice Sheraton Suites hotel, and walk to our cozy, and extremely inexpensive, offices where I work with an incredible group of people. I have local machine shops, local banks, and even Universities to turn to when needed. This isn’t my whole solution for Nanotronics. We are on both coasts, and will be in India, China and Korea among other places, but it is right now one of the most important places for us and ideal for us. I think that it could be for a lot of others as well.

Facing Eternity In San Francisco

Last night I was walking to a technology event in San Francisco, and being early and thirsty from a reckless run up and down Lombard Street, I found a pub to grab a beer. Though it was dark, I noticed an absolutely impossible not to notice character in the science world, Aubrey De Grey. De Grey has a beard which goes below the waste, making the fact that I wear Mickey Mouse socks and play the banjo look much less eccentric. I have written here before about De Grey, (The Jellyfish)and the philosophical struggle I have, which wavers between a desire to embrace his research to engineer immortality, or to brush it aside as harmful delusion. I introduced myself, and unsurprising he is a major intellect, who enjoys a pint and has an excellent sense of humor. When I told him how much I liked living in Paris, he said something which is insightful, but not usually pointed out which was “why did you like it? Certainly it wasn’t for the beer.” So within 20 minutes I was again thinking that it might be possible to live forever, even though we didn’t even talk about this.

The evening was intriguing, mind boggling, encouraging and the food was delicious. This was a group of 200 hundred or so Silicon Valley insiders who were there to talk about a range of foundations that are especially forward thinking, one of which was The SENS Foundation, which De Grey is a founder of. The noble pursuits of the group were on the border of science, economics and possibly science fiction, which is a place I am comfortable inhabiting. With all of the interesting people I talked to, I thought of every conversation through the lens of immortality, as represented by De Grey. Suddenly my reliance on quantitative data became a little less stringent than it usually is amongst scientists. All of the science presented was well researched and intelligent, but many of it exists just beyond the complete technological, or even mathematical grasp of our time. This is important I think. I write about feeling on the fringe of science and music, and the respect I have for the fringe. What I realized from this event is that some of the most successful and smart thinkers and entrepreneurs in the country are not so much on the fringe, but off of the table completely. In this frame of mind a singularity, nanobots and even living forever are technical challenges, not fantasies. For many of these people the science and technology fills the place in their lives that the combination of science and art fill in mine. So is a garage start-up mentality dedicated to eternal rejuvenation (or super humans, or nano robots) a way of dealing with existential dread, or more simply an act of the curious inventor? Are either of these more noble than the other? If an unexamined life is not worth living, does it mean that the search for immortality is examining life more or less? The film maker Darren Aronofsky made a film I liked very much called “The Fountain”.  When asked in an interview why he made this film about the search for the fountain of youth, set in the past, present, and a future in a floating bubble in space, he said that it was to show that at some point, regardless of how long we can live, humans need to come to terms with death. It is perhaps the greatest emotional and intellectual chasm I have; that I believe De Grey and Aronofsky at the same time.