COLLIDING
EDUCATION AND
TECHNOLOGY
“EDUCATION.”
A SOCIALLY
ACCEPTABLE
WAY OF SAYING
“CHA-CHING.”
Any organization can prattle on about the
importance of education and learning.
How it’s transformative or empowering or
whatever. What they tend to overlook is that
education enriches people, literally. And
everyone, regardless of economic strata,
gets a shot at it. Don’t get us wrong. At GSV,
we’re as reverent of education as anyone.
We just think it’s a shame when all that
reverence makes education seem careful, or
boring, or heaven forbid, like “the right thing
to do.” We believe knowledge is currency,
an idea-generating, convention-flattening,
opportunity-creating juggernaut. All aboard.
BIG IDEAS
DON’T ALWAYS
FIND A RECEPTIVE
AUDIENCE.
Breakthrough thinking rarely goes far without
a little support. People who know a good idea
when they see it. People willing to get behind
something so forward thinking it’s bound to
make a few waves. As early investors in some
of the world’s most successful and disruptive
start-ups, we’ve developed an eye for heresy.
And when we come across an entrepreneur
with dangerously different ideas, we find seed
money way more effective than hemlock.
JUST IMAGINE IF THESE GUYS
HAD A LITTLE SEED MONEY.
SOCRATES
GREGOR MENDEL
IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS
ARISTARCHUS
AMEDEO AVOGADRO
Socrates wasn’t just one of the
smartest humans of all time.
He taught some of the other
smartest humans of all time.
But some higher-ups thought
he was “corrupting the minds
of youths.” So, they killed him.
Today, people know Mendel
as the guy who pioneered the
science of genetics. Back in
his own day, Mendel wasn’t
known at all. Nobody could
understand his weird crossbreeding experiments with
peas and dismissed him. Then
he just kind of disappeared.
If only Ignaz was here to see
all the antibacterial soaps on
the market today. He was the
one who discovered that new
moms were getting sick because
medical students delivering
babies didn’t wash their hands
first. His peers thought he was
nuts. Today, companies make
billions on little plastic pump
bottles filled with his thinking.
Aristarwho? Exactly. Aristarchus
was the first person to believe
that the earth and other planets
orbit the sun, and that the stars
are much farther away from
us than planets. People forgot
about him completely. But not
before passing off his ideas as
their own.
Avogadro was a professor at
a university who proposed that
equal volumes of different
gases contain an equal number
of molecules as long as they’re
at the same temperature and
pressure. He died before anyone
believed him. Today, Avogadro is
regarded as one of the founders
of atomic-molecular chemistry.
Not that he’ll ever know.
WE’RE NOT STUPID.
THAT’S WHY WE GLOM
ONTO SMART PEOPLE.
We have a thing for luminaries, whether it’s
Common, Condoleezza Rice, Bill Gates or
some promising entrepreneur who’s about
to launch the next big thing. We find the
rockstars of tomorrow and connect them with
the thought leaders of today. Because good
things happen when people with amazing
ideas meet people who can bring them to life.
IT TAKES
A VILLAGE.
OF GENIUSES.
The mission to send people to Mars isn’t
happening because one guy had an a-ha
moment in his shower. Thousands of
people from all over the world are coming
together to make it happen. We invest in
technology that allows collaboration to
happen between the worlds of business,
pop culture, technology, talent and learning.
Yes, a single epiphany can work wonders.
But imagine what happens when thousands
of people have them at the same time.
IT’S EITHER THE
WORLD’S SMARTEST
SUMMIT. OR A
REALLY AWKWARD
COCKTAIL PARTY.
The ASU GSV Summit brings together investors,
educators and innovators. Basically, different
groups of people who would otherwise never
be in the same room together. And it’s pretty
cool. Because despite their differences in
extracurricular activities and neighborhoods,
they all share the same goal — to move
learning and talent technology forward and
create success for everyone involved. So,
while the conversation may not involve video
games or favorite golf courses, the end result
is pretty amazing.
THE LAB 3M
USES TO PRESERVE
THEIR OWN DNA.
GSV celebrates over 450 learning and talent
technology companies through the GSV ASU
Summit, with 60 of them residing under one
roof, at GSV Labs, our innovation campus in
Silicon Valley. The energy of that many
promising start-ups in close proximity isn’t
simply “something you can feel when you
walk in.” It’s more like your hair might catch
on fire, but in a good way. Which is why
companies like Intel and 3M have taken up
residence there too. Sheer brilliance, insane
urgency, asymmetric thinking. It’s all part of
their DNA, and they want to keep it that way.
NEWSFLASH.
HUMAN BEINGS WILL
ALWAYS DO STUFF.
That whole thing where machines completely
replace humanity, leaving us to kick-it in a
utopian society where everyone wears togas
and money is no longer relevant; well, don’t
hold your breath. Yes, technology will
continue its inexorable march forward, and
at a much faster pace than us humans. After
all, we evolve in linear fashion, but tech
evolves exponentially. Yes, as oft-predicted,
technology will replace the technologist. But
behind that technology will be other, smarter
technologists. And teaching them is not only
a big challenge, it’s also a big opportunity.
IT’S LIKE FINDING
A SUPRAMOLECULAR
ASSEMBLY IN A
HAYSTACK.
The next overachieving nanotechnologist
might not be riding a fixed gear bicycle in
Redwood City. They could be anywhere.
Albania. Eritrea. Kyrgyzstan. The point is,
geniuses aren’t conveniently located near
renowned institutions of higher learning.
They’re sprinkled liberally across planet
Earth. And providing them with the tools to
contribute isn’t some squishy philanthropic
notion. It’s common sense. If we give them
things they need, imagine what they might
give back.
WEAPONS OF MASS
INSTRUCTION.
Knowledge isn’t something that should be
applied to a precious few. It should be
unleashed onto the world so everyone can
benefit from it. An undergrad from Harvard
might want to take a course from a professor
at Stanford. A line cook might want to learn
how to code. Or maybe a stay-at-home mom
needs to up her STEM game, so she can go
back to work. So we invest in companies with
incendiary platforms that spread information
like wildfire.
LIFE’S ORIGINAL
ACCELERATOR.
Accelerators are great, and we’re certainly
proud of ours. But long before there were
fixed-term cohort-based XYZ comblombinators
of any kind, there was education and learning,
catapulting great ideas and the people who
had them to meteoric success. No single
platform or program casts a wider net for
talent, or bubbles up big thinking at anywhere
near the scale. Simply put, learning is life’s
original talent accelerator. From “pre-k to gray,”
it’s the best place to find, fund and nurture
whatever’s next.