A few weeks ago, I took an Uber ride with a grey-haired man named William. He spent 40 years as a manufacturing worker but lost his job two years ago. With little saved for retirement, he drives for Uber to make ends meet. Now, he fears that self-driving cars will again put him out of work. When he started talking about the Presidential election, I feared I was about to become a captive audience to a lecture on his political candidate of choice. Instead, what he asked caught me by surprise. “Why aren’t we having honest, tough conversations about the reality of our future?” he asked me. Indeed.
Not a day goes by when we don’t hear in the news about the upheaval our country is facing. A breathtaking array of technologies is making its way to market — virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, smart devices, drones, bio security. We’ve only barely begun to scratch the surface of how these technologies will impact us — how we work (whether we work!), how we live, how we learn, our healthcare, our money, transportation, even how (and what) we eat.
This inevitable shift from the industrial era to the digital economy is the largest technology transition in history, and it may quite possibly drive the biggest economic upheaval our world has ever seen. The wake this will leave behind has the potential to be either disastrous or game-changing to our cities and our nation.
Sadly, at the very time we should be creating new companies to harness these emerging technologies and create new jobs, our economy is increasingly relying on older, less dynamic, incumbent firms. Despite our entrepreneurial legacy, U.S. startup engines have slowed the last 30 years, and our economy has steadily become less entrepreneurial.
Unfortunately, very few of our national leaders fully understand these digital era dynamics. Only 10% of Members of Congress (and even fewer Governors, Mayors and state legislators) have a background in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). In fact, in the last Congress, 39% of the House members and 57% Senators were lawyers — not entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, technologists and business leaders. How can we ensure our nation’s future global leadership position and jobs for our family, friends and children if our leaders don’t fully grasp the magnitude of the impact technology will have on our economy?
Our country has a lot of very difficult conversations ahead of us. Yet, at a time when we should be coming together to discuss the hard realities we face and forge a path to cement our nation’s future economic leadership, we are a country pulling apart at the seams.
In March my six-year-old, Chase, came home from kindergarten in tears. After hugs and over snacks, he shared with me that his classmates were “discussing” the election and someone told him “Donald Trump says people with brown skin like you are bad.” What do you do when the anger and frustration evident in the national discourse hurts your child so personally?
During the recent Presidential debate 20 million US Facebook users commented, liked and shared content about the debate and more than 17 million debate-related tweets were sent on Twitter. We shared puppet memes, video clips, quotes of favorite lines, jokes and harsh words. But how many of us are willing to move beyond words to action?
When children are coming home in tears because they are taunting each other over skin color, repeating candidate’s words about race, what do we do? When 60-year-olds displaced in the industrial era now fear that self-driving cars will take away their gig economy work, what do we do? When the words we use to describe the people we have nominated to lead our nation include arrogant, dishonest, untrustworthy, misogynist, racist, and corrupt, what do we do?
In the 1960’s, our nation’s brightest men and women heeded President John F. Kennedy’s words “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” and together they achieved moonshot goals. But over the past decades, government has increasingly come to be reviled. The best science, engineering, entrepreneur and investor minds criticize our government, our country and our challenges in blogs, posts and tweets but stop short of stepping up to lead.
It’s time for that to change. We must run for office. Volunteer. Take on government roles. Meet with our political leaders to help them fully understand the technologies we know. Testify. Publish a paper. Become an advisor. Just. Do. Something.
The dichotomy between the leadership characteristics I want to instill in my son and what we are experiencing in our political leaders has become intolerable to me. I want my son to become a man of character, to have role models who are unafraid to be honest and do the hard work to tackle our great challenges, and to grow up in a country that stands as a beacon of hope, freedom and leadership for the world.
We live in a democracy. That means we can choose our values. We can choose our role models and leaders. We can choose our future. But we must do more than talk. We must choose to act.
In the days following the election, rather than posting or tweeting, I will be doing some serious soul searching to identify how I can do more in the coming years. I encourage all of us to do the same.
We must move from being a nation outraged to a nation engaged.