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Fortune Brainstorm Tech – People and Questions

I’m one of the folks who will be at Half Moon Bay in mid-July for the Fortune Brainstorm Tech meeting. You can take a look at the guest list and see easily which one is not like the other ones, as they used to say on Sesame Street. But you can help! If you know these folks and wanna have me give them your regards or say hey or whatever, drop me a note or leave a comment or a tweet.

But wait there is more! I just got a note from Fortune asking me (and all the others) three pressing questions. I’ll post my answers here as I construct them, but don’t wait for me. What would you answer:

1) What is the most exciting technology innovation you’ve seen in the past 12 months?

2) What is your biggest hope or fear for the future, and how does tech relate to it?

3) What should be the top priority for the next US president?

9 Comments

  1. david silver

    hey paul!

    (if you happen to be in the bay area the weekend prior to the conference, let’s scheme on how and when to meetup!)

    my answers to your questions:

    1. nothing comes to mind.
    2. my biggest fear for the future is a societal-level loss of an appreciation or even awareness of mother earth. tech may be able to help to foster strong, sustainable, distributed collectives that care for our host rock.
    3. stop all US wars now.

    i’m glad that a mind like yours will be joining all those fancy pancy people.

  2. Paul

    I am clearly the glass half at this gathering. Will you be in SFO before or after these dates (July 21 – 23)?

  3. david silver

    i’m in santa cruz beginning july 24th.

    but, i’m free on sunday, july 20th. if you plan to fly into SFO, i can pick you up, spend some time hanging out, and even drop you off in (somewhat nearby) half moon bay. consider it an option.

  4. Michael Tiemann

    1) What is the most exciting technology innovation you’ve seen in the past 12 months?

    Locally grown vegetables and meats.

    2) What is your biggest hope or fear for the future, and how does tech relate to it?

    My biggest fear for the future is that we are actually well into the phase of human-caused global warming, and that the 1-2 billion people who can only survive in a pre-climactic change environment are going to make war with the 1-2 billion people living on the adjacent resources that supply the last 1-2 billion people the fruits of a first-world lifestyle.

    3) What should be the top priority for the next US president?

    The next US president must give scientific research a full-fledged seat at the policy table. I disagree with Susan Hockfield and others who say we need to invest more in science. The crime is not that we spend 50% of what we can afford to spend on science. The crime is that we throw away 90% of what science teaches (when it comes to policy), and we use the remaining 10% to make the rest of the world hate us.

  5. Roebot

    Be sure to rabidly plug MindTouch as the most innovative and interesting startup you’ve come across in recent years. 🙂

  6. Paul

    David, thanks for the invite. We should def hook up while we’re out your way. I’ve left you a note on FB.

    Roebot, you certainly have a case to make for MindTouch — and I love how you keep making it.

    Michael, Much thanks. I’ll put these and other ideas together this week.

    1) has got to be the iPhone. There are other technologies but the whole iPhone package including the frustrating parts — like locked phones, one carrier are all innovatively done

  7. Doug Whitfield

    Well, I don’t know Mr. Dell, and I don’t know how much he had a hand in this, but thanking him for Dell’s Ubuntu support would be great! I greatly enjoy mine!

    3. Since this is a tech conference I wonder if the comments about the next prez should be about tech stuff. I’d personally like to see less proprietary software in schools, and potentially more important, teaching students how to use tools and not A tool so if they happened to see GIMP instead of Photoshop they don’t think they can work at all. That kind of thinking really irritates me.

  8. Anonymous

    1) What is the most exciting technology innovation you’ve seen in the past 12 months?

    Sadly, nothing exciting enough to mention.

    2) What is your biggest hope or fear for the future, and how does tech relate to it?

    The erosion of U.S. leadership in science and technology and related, the seemingly increasing civic apathy at all levels of our society.

    3) What should be the top priority for the next US president?

    Create an enormous-scale national project (think moon shot) whose goal is responsible energy independence, with the obvious outlets for technology spinoffs, new investment in applied science and technology education from K-12, etc. The goal is noble and good, but the process itself will prove even more valuable for this country.

  9. Justis Peters

    Paul,

    Congratulations on the invitation! I hope you have a great time. Be sure to say “hi” to all the luminaries for us. Here are my answers to the questions you asked:

    1) Vladen Koltun presenting http://dryad.standford.edu here: http://blip.tv/file/760578/
    2) That we will invent the “technological singularity” in a responsible manner, such that it looks to humans for moral guidance and humanity. Getting this right could imply many marvelous advancements, including world peace and an abundance of global wealth. I’m totally cool with it if we manage to pull off world peace first, though.
    3) The next president should embrace the interactive media that are now rising in popularity as an effort to better engage the population in policy debates. Yes, there is a “digital divide”, but there’s already a divide between those who can travel to Washington to be heard and those who have internet access. We should make it easy for people to become educated on relevant policy matters and to contribute constructively to the process.

    Kind regards,
    Justis Peters

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