2020
VISI N
A History of the Future
Fall 2015
gsv.com
GLOBAL SILICON VALLEY
2020 Vision: A History of the Future
A GSV MEDIA PUBLICATION
2020 Authors
Michael Moe
Deborah Quazzo
Nicholas Franco
@michaelmoe
[email protected]
@deborahquazzo
[email protected]
@nick"ranco
[email protected]
Suzee Han
Li Jiang
Michael Cohn
GSV Asset Management
Co-Founder + Partner
GSV Asset Management
Analyst
GSV Advisors
Founder + Managing Partner
GSV Asset Management
Vice President
@suzeehan
[email protected]
@gsvpioneer
[email protected]
Ma! Hanson
Luben Pampoulov
GSV Asset Management
Partner
@ma#hansoncfa
[email protected]
Brandon Thompson
GSV Advisors
Associate
[email protected]
GSV Asset Management
Vice President
GSV Advisors
Director
@mcohn913
[email protected]
GSV Asset Management
Co-Founder + Partner
@lubjo81
[email protected]
Nancy Lue
GSV Summit
Execu!ve Director
[email protected]
Courtney Reilly
Mark Flynn
GSV Advisors
Director
@courtney_r53
[email protected]
GSV Asset Management
Partner
[email protected]
It's !me to try defying gravity.
IDINA MENZEL FROM WICKED
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Execu!ve Summary
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Whether you think you can, or you
think you can't – you’re right.
HENRY FORD
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A History of the Future
By 2015, there was a widely held belief that America was an empire in decline.
Some said it was inevitable and was just following the arc of fallen World Powers
before it, such as Great Britain and the Roman Empire. Others felt the steep fall
from being the sole global Superpower was from self-inflicted wounds, such as
high deficits, disastrous wars, escala!ng economic inequality, permanent
government gridlock, and flagrant immorality.
What was clear was that the United States had lost its MOJO and its way. The
American Dream — the limitless opportunity the United States symbolized, and
the aspira!on for your family having a be"er life than your own — had become a
fantasy.
Occupy Wall Street was a movement that highlighted the percep!on and fact that
fewer and fewer people were par!cipa!ng in the future. Technology and
Globaliza!on were twin forces wiping out marginal jobs and making career
obsolescence a new reality for many.
The Global Knowledge Economy required a well-educated populace, but
interna!onal academic tests revealed that American students were not globally
compe!!ve. Persistently high drop-out rates, especially in large urban school
districts, were effec!vely crea!ng the "living dead.” For those able to graduate
from college, jobs were scarce and the $1.2 trillion of student debt was
suffoca!ng.
It became self-evident that not only was the United States’ stature at risk, but
growing inequality threatened the democracy itself.
Rather than take this fate without a fight, leaders came together in Beaver Creek,
Colorado, in the fall of 2014, to map out an alterna!ve path than the “Road to
Ruins.” While there were many different issues that needed to be addressed,
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leaders agreed that the overriding issue to restore the fabric of the United States
was that EVERYBODY needed an equal opportunity to par!cipate in the future.
For a country as great as America, it was unacceptable that opportunity was
defined by the parents a child picked. Redistribu!on of wealth was a non-starter,
but redistribu!on of opportunity was impera!ve.
With this fundamental truth as the compass, the des!na!on for the New America
was set. True North was that every person in the United States was to be provided
equal opportunity to par!cipate in the future. The founda!on for this inalienable
right would be built upon universal access to World-class educa!on and relevant
knowledge.
Cynics and Skep!cs gleefully pointed to the decades of well-inten!oned failures
and looked at the "2020 Vision" as another fool’s errand.
You don’t just accidentally show up in the World Series.
DEREK JETER
Recognizing that there was no "Silver Bullet" that would magically and instantly
reach the des!na!on, a comprehensive game plan was created to "March"
towards the goal, step by step. Jim Collins, best selling author of Good to Great and
management guru, catalyzed the Beaver Creek group’s journey toward a “20 Mile
March.” A mantra of, "whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're
right" was adopted by the architects of the 2020 Vision, along with an a#tude
that the "planks were drawn.”
A story that inspired the leaders of this movement was that of Gordon Moore,
who in 1965 predicted that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit
would double every two years. The effect of "Moore's Law" was that compu!ng
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power would double every two years for the past 50 years and/or the cost would
be cut in half. If the automobile industry would have had its own Moore's Law, a
Ford Taurus that cost $20,000 in 1990 would essen!ally be free and you'd throw
it away a%er you drove it.
Interes!ngly, while Moore's Law was the founda!on and catalyst behind the
Technology Revolu!on, it's not a physical or natural law.....it was a conjecture. In
other words, the "Law" that has transformed compu!ng and society was really
more of a vision of what could become. It was a force of will. Nonetheless, the
belief in Moore's Law allowed engineers and technologists to imagine a World
where you could have a computer in your pocket, self-driving cars, and
personalized medicine.
So, in effect, Moore's Law became like gravity… inevitable.
The 2020 Vision was quite clear: equal opportunity for everybody to par!cipate in
the future. With our des!na!on in mind at the start, we ran the March in reverse
to the beginning — the status quo in 2015. From there, we mapped out the steps
of our March, which is the script of how we got to where we are today in 2020.
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Our
Signposts
TheTen
March
OUR 10 SIGNPOSTS
Opportunity
for all
THE MARCH
We iden!fied 10 “signposts” on the march towards our goal
of giving everyone an equal opportunity to par!cipate in the
future. These signposts were key indicators that we were on
track to reach our des!na!on. For each signpost, we
iden!fied the impediments, needs, and solu!ons to op!mize
our outcomes and fulfill the mission of our journey.
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