#4 Dr. Jeffrey Funk

And the next episode of The Only Constant is out! This time I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Jeffrey Funk , who is a tech and especially hype pessimist with the arguments to back it up. His vast and lifelong experience in technology development, startup economics and change adoption makes him a perfect guest for The Only Constant.

Read more on him at the bottom of this newsletter.

Like always, I am very happy that we once again managed to make an episode that explores more than it explains ??

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Listen to the episode here:

Apple: The Only Constant on Apple Podcasts

Spotify: The Only Constant | Podcast on Spotify

Google: The Only Constant (google.com)

Spreaker: The Only Constant (spreaker.com)

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What made this episode special to me?:

Just moments before we kicked off our chat and pressed "record", the rain started pouring in Singapore, where Jeffrey is based. Had I been recording an indie rock song, this would have been a perfect setting, as I can already imagine the theme and lyrics of smash hit "The Rains of Singapore". But unfortunately, this was not the purpose and we had to navigate the background noise as well as possible. With Ableton, I managed to remove a lot of it, but I hope listeners will bear with the sound quality - the rain wears off halfway through and all gets better.

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Beyond that, I am absolutely thrilled with how we got the conversation going. From how Jeffrey went from being a tech-optimist to a pessimist to a broader discussion on what it actually means for a technology to fail, and what makes successful technology. Some of my key post-recording deliberations were:

• Adoption is not the only issue that makes a technology non-successful. While I would usually tend to believe that change resistance and subsequent slower adoption rate was the key impediment, Jeffrey pointed to documented lack of evolution in a lot of technologies beyond their basic research stage. He mentions nanotechnology as an example, where he year on year told about the same ideas and state of technology, with no improvement.
• We do not need to invent weird demands for technology. The example with AI is whether a car really needs an email-drafting generative AI functionality. Like, what is it in a car that is significantly improved by generative AI? Assistant systems are not driven by generative AI, but by narrow, specific models and this point is important - generative AI will definitely improve a lot of functions and products, but not all.
• But on the other hand, when I went home from the office after the recording, I found myself disagreeing slightly: when part of your core challenges is that there is a new technology that competitors might be using in ways that could outstage you, your only strategy becomes curiosity, right? The dichotomy of problem solvers and opportunity finders at the center of change seem to remain…
• Are we making humans ripe for AI automation? Our discussion on research experts being more and more occupied with administrative tasks (and research resembling administration more and more) was an eye opener to me.

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Finally, I believe Jeffrey's last comment on what is the only constant is… brilliant and quite provocative. I will not spoil it here, but listen in on the episode and let me know what you think. And if you aren't already, make sure to follow Jeffrey Funk on LinkedIn for more of his brilliant insights.

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About Jeffrey:

Dr. Jeffrey Funk has had a notable 40-year career focusing on the emergence and diffusion of new technologies, both as a professor and consultant. He was an early proponent of smartphones during the late 1990s and early 2000s in Japan when the Japanese were ahead of the West. His insights enabled him to help several Western companies implement phones and services. He was one of the first to recommend the use of apps as early as 2004, years before the iPhone launch in 2007. This work earned him the NTT DoCoMo mobile science award in 2004.

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After moving to the National University of Singapore in 2007, Dr. Funk taught a unique course on the economics of new technologies. This course, along with his supporting research, positioned him as an early critic of current startups and venture capitalists. He continues to be a leading voice for startups and new technologies, contributing through writing, speaking, consulting, and engaging on platforms like LinkedIn. His work suggests that technological advancements and startups are progressing more slowly than in the past, and he emphasizes the importance of seeking genuine scientific advances for true value creation in new ventures.