Marc Andreessen, the biggest name in venture capital, has been on a roll lately lighting up Twitter and blogging like never before.
Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, has achieved cult-like status in Silicon Valley and, perhaps, the country for his multiple billion-dollar exits as an entrepreneur and the investments his firm Andreessen Horowitz made in startups like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Skype. He’s a rock star not only in the tech industry, but in the world of business.
So when Andreessen shares his thoughts, we’d all be smart to pay attention. As case in point, a recent post on the firm’s website by Andreessen examines the role of timing when it comes to investing in innovation.
The post, which is profound in its grasp of the tech marketplace, reflects on Apple’s Newton — a precursor to the iPad — and why it failed in the marketplace. As he writes:
When I got to the Valley all the VCs had just gotten their heads handed to them on pen computing, including Apple with the Newton. The Newton in 1989 and the iPad in 2009 are essentially the same product just 20 years later, with 20 years of advances in software and hardware.
To Andreessen, the Newton is a perfect example of an innovation consumers weren’t quite ready for at the time its release. Two decades later, after the iPhone had taken the world by storm, the timing was right because – as the first Apple ads promoting the iPad told consumers – “You already know how to use it.”
Andreessen’s thoughts on timing made me think about the pressing tech policy issue of the day, which is the transition to all-IP networks. As an idea, all-IP networks aren’t new and when they were first introduced, they were seen by many as an expensive, unnecessary luxury. But today, as consumers have embraced all the devices and services powered by IP networks at a blistering pace, what was once an idea ahead of its time just a few years ago has suddenly turned into a race to keep up with demand.
Every month, hundreds of thousands of Americans are dumping their traditional home phone service. “Plain Old Telephone Service” (POTS), — which served us so well for so long — is being abandoned by consumers in favor of wireless and IP-based replacements, and service providers are having to build next-generation networks as fast as possible to keep up with demand.
The tipping point for this transition has already occurred, which means we’re past the time when investing in all-IP is a luxury. Now it’s a necessity.
One lesson from Andreessen’s success is that you can’t know the perfect time to invest in a new idea, but it is better to invest too early than to wait and have to invest much more later. Near the end of his blog post, Andreessen describes invention as a “magic moment when it all comes together.” For the IP Transition, the magic moment is already in the rearview mirror. Keeping up with — and surpassing — consumer demand for Internet-powered products and services can happen, but the time to start talking about it has passed, and the time to invest heavily is upon us.
