In 2025, Remember: There Is No Finish Line in Technology

I spent most the the holiday break working on the outline for my forthcoming book, "The Spatial Race." January 1 was my first official writing day, and in only a short period of time, I've managed to cover a decent amount of ground and circle back around to a profound idea -- in tech, as in running, there really is no finish line.

As a distance runner, this seems almost counter-intuitive. Of course there is a finish line -- you do the miles or the time, you cross it, and someone gives you a medal and a snack. But the issue is that for many runners, that finish line is only the start. More than once, I've finished a race, eaten my banana, gotten in the car or on the train to go home, and opened my phone and registered for another race. There's always something else to run. The finish line is only when you cannot physically move anymore.

In technology, everyone seems to want a finish line, despite the fact that it simply doesn't exist. Bloggers LOVE to say tech has failed because it wasn't adopted fast enough, or it made mistakes, or didn't solve their exact problem. Waymo gets in an accident and people talk about banning it; a human driver mows down a massive crowd on Bourbon Street and only a few days later the street has been hosed down and reopened and no one has said anything about outlawing cars. ChatGPT returns an incorrect result and people call for Sam Altman's head; turn on any cable news show and someone will cheerfully spread lies while the panel nods along.

That's because we seem to have this huge desire for things to be done and finished and set, despite that never being the case. It took sixteen years from the introduction of the Macintosh for over half of households to have computers. And over those years, and the 25 following, computers evolved and changed and grew. The same can be said for phones, or headsets, or chatbots, or any other device.

And when exactly is a technology considered finished? Many of us are used to Zoom calls, but my friend who just bought a new house is wasting an entire day driving to her bank because they only do in person closings for...reasons? I guess they just shut down during Covid? So is video calling dead because a certain group of dinosaurs won't use it? What exactly is the benchmark here?

This is a roundabout way of saying that in 2025, I hope we all resolve to forget the idea of linear timelines and starts and ends in technology. I taped a podcast recently where the host called Google Glass a failure -- but versions of that exact technology are being released to great fanfare now. Sales of the Vision Pro have been slow initially -- but who knows what the device will become in the future. AI is getting better and smarter every day and will continue to evolve.

Transparently, I'm as guilty of this as anyone, at least in my own life. I've always tended to disregard what was in front of me for the next thing, dutifully climbing the mountain and racking up the honors and awards in hopes of some nebulous future state. But this year, I resolve to be more present and not worry so much about where the next thing will get me -- I'd rather stop looking for the finish line and just enjoy the run.