Tech Trends over the Past 20 Years | An Interview with our CEO

Q: What are the most impactful technologies/tech trends over the past 20 years that have shaped our world?

A: The advent of mobile app technology, Google Maps, open-source web technologies, and social media during the last two decades has impacted nearly every person on Earth. Mobile app technology (“smartphones”) had the greatest impact on the average person.?

Q: How do you manage to stay on top of technology trends?

A: While watching the ramp-up of technology through the 1990s, it was easy to look back in the early aughts and see why some things seemed so exciting, and others did not appear striking. Ultimately, the survivors were not all from the exciting group of new technologies. It became apparent to me then that the technologies that will go beyond a short trend are those that change our lives by immediately changing our behavior forever.?

Q: What are, in your opinion, some of technology’s biggest flops?

A: Well, when you have unlimited money and the ability to chase rainbows, then we must be talking about Google. Even though the search engine still owns the search domain, the company has brought us many notable flops over the last 20 years. Google Hangouts, Google Glass, Google Android Wear & Wear OS, Google Project Ara, Google DayDream, Google Tango, The Google Barge, Google Fiber, Google Reader, Google Nexus Q, and finally Google +.

Now, the worst flops are probably not on that list, but this shows that you need to break a few eggs to change the world.

My suggestion for a few of the top flops would be Net Neutrality (governance failure), Theranos (technology fraud), Faraday Future (gross mismanagement aligned with fantasy product vision), and finally, Blackberry (delivered the future but then fell off a cliff). There was a moment when Blackberry was the hottest device on the planet, and every respectable businessperson and tech enthusiast had one on their hip. Believing that they had made the final step in technology evolution and that iteration forward wasn’t needed, it wasn’t long before they were tossed into the technology trash heap.

Q: What trends are you most excited about in the future?

A: I have been investing to perform research and development in machine learning and artificial intelligence for about 6 years now. It has been clear to me that these technologies need a monumental shift to take hold. They were a gimmick for the most part until early last year when Chat GPT was launched. I see a five-year window where these technologies will spread to all aspects of our lives, much like the internet and mobile phones have changed everything forever.

Q: What trends in technology do you think will be able to deliver the most value to our clients and their communities?

A: Machine learning in software development will majorly impact the cost of producing technology. Also, accessibility will finally see its day as the cost to deliver and efforts to maintain accessible content will be machine-performed and widely available.?

Q: What’s the greatest impact that the next ten years of technology will have on our lives?

A: A societal focus on energy, climate change, food production and distribution, human migration, human conflict, and medicine will energize the technologies behind these efforts to solve problems we have witnessed that have gone unchanged for decades. The emergence of highly functional artificial intelligence may finally allow us to solve these highly complex problems.