At the end of her presentation (starting with slide 53), Meeker outlines a financial scenario in which the U.S. debt crisis, stock market volatility and economic slowdown could conceivably act as a significant brake on American innovation.
“I am always terrified. Life is really quite terrifying for me. But I can’t imagine a life without terror. So, to me, that’s what living is. Living is taking risks, of trying to work out things – doing books or projects or conferences or being with people who are smarter than you or you don’t understand. And you don’t understand that book that you’re going to write about a subject. That you are really at risk – at absolute risk of humiliation all the time…”
TED creator Richard Saul Wurman on innovation, terror and the world of ‘also’
This week bore witness to two high-profile technology conferences at which a number of aspiring entrepreneurs presented their latest inventions. That’s right, we’re pitting TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2011 conference against Demo 2011. In the interest of full disclosure, the Washington Post has a content sharing agreement with TechCrunch. And, did we mention this is an entirely non-scientific poll?
When it comes to technology, baby boomers are far from slouches. In fact, they are so engaged in the latest gadgets that a senior VP of AARP made an appearance at the technology conference Demo 2011. In addition, AARP appeared alongside trendier sponsors such as Microsoft BizSpark and Alcatel-Lucent.
AARP’s senior vice president of thought leadership, Jody Holtzman, had his reasons for being there — all 78 million of them.
