Chris Dixon

  • January 13, 2011
Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will.

People love to focus on horse races:  NYC vs Silcon Valley, Facebook vs Twitter, IPO markets vs private exchanges, the valuation of some startup vs some other startup.  Like a lot of people in the tech industry, I’ve gotten inquiries recently on the meaning of Facebook’s “private” IPO with Goldman Sachs, whether VC valuations are indicative of a bubble, whether such-and-such startup is overvalued, and so on.

These questions are all footnotes that will be forgotten in a few years.  The Internet has gone through fits and starts – in particular the dot com crash of 2000 disillusioned many – but every year we see it transform industries that previously sauntered along blissfully denying its existence.  Already transformed: music, news, advertising, telecom. Being transformed: finance, commerce, TV & movies, real estate, politics & government. Soon to be transformed (among many others): healthcare, education, energy.

The modern economy runs primarily on information, and the Internet is by orders of magnitude the greatest information mechanism ever invented.  In a few years, we’ll look back in amazement that in 2011 we still used brokers to help us find houses, that doctors kept records scribbled on notepads, that government information was carefully spoon-fed to a compliant press corps, and that scarcity of information and tools was a primary inhibitor to education.

Thus far the US has led Internet innovation. There are things the US can do to keep this lead, including: 1) exporting the entrepreneurial ethos of Silicon Valley to the rest of the country (including places like my home city, New York), 2) allowing talented people to go where their skills are most needed (e.g. by changing US immigration policies), 3) convincing the upcoming generation to innovate in sectors that have a direct impact on the quality of peoples’ lives (Internet, healthcare, energy, education) instead of wasting time on sectors that were historically prestigious (e.g. finance and law) but add little to negative economic and societal value.

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will.  People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation. The only choice you have is whether you join the side of innovation and progress or you don’t.

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  • Nflunza

    I think the question going forward is not so much the definition of transformation per se BUT the speed of transformation. Where the speed clouds the transformation. I question and wonder what transformation us humans will need to make in order to comprehend, absorb and interpret the light speed of information.

    WE talk about virality as Magic and how to bottle it. WE look at what has become viral and wonder how did it take off. WE may look back to this era and laugh and cry how viralization was actually a 2010 version of subliminal control and a form of trancing not much different than the 1970s outlawing of subliminal messaging in advertising. People will then chuckle and laugh and say why didn’t we outlaw this in the early 2000′s. And ofcouse the answer will be very simple – we were able to fuse freedoms of humungous financial gains with a planetary transformation into one generally acceptable concept – VIRAL and its younger offsprings Traction.

    Not much different than a law from Adam Smith or a law of physics – To be truly Human in this decade is to be VIRAL. Its what all the cool kids are doing……  So we go back to the question whether you join the side of innovation and progress or you don’t. –

    And for me Ultimately……… I like being cool :-)

  • Florian Feder

    I noticed that the law itself is missing from your list of industries that will be revolutionized. Maybe the internet could make the law more efficient and less annoying? Added bonus is that a more efficient legal system would need less lawyers and therefore free up talent.

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  • Adam

    Chris,
    Thank you for this post. It’s Great! I recently met with one of the local city commissioners (here in Tallahassee, FL) about the city formally endorsing a technology which my start-up is developing. The commissioner owns a marketing and PR firm so I figured that he would understand the disruption potential of the internet as marketing has been dramatically effected by it. To my dismay, he completely lacked such foresight, claiming disbelief that internet innovation would transform the subject industry to which my startup addresses. Well, after reading this posting I forwarded it onto him, suggesting that the author, a NYC entrepreneur and VC just might happen to know a thing or two about the evolution of technology… I think he will be a bit more responsive next time I meet with him, after he has read this…

    NOTE: I know the nature of my startup is pretty vague in this comment, so it is hard to respond on the likelihood of the subject industry being disrupted by my startup, but regardless I just wanted to say, THANKS! GREAT EVIDENTIAL ARTICLE WHICH WILL BE USED AS REFERENCE MATERIAL IN FUTURE PITCHES FOR SURE!

    -Adam
    http://www.SiliconTally.com

  • douglas puckett

    im requested to go to washington for a meeting on the med screen . i have one of the med screens there now . i have been told to bring the gasoline and diesel fuel saver. this is the 80% farther MPG. and 63% less exhaust polution. one of these is there now also . my other projects have been brought up and now i must describe in detail the oil bead that i made 5 years ago. this is a process that 80% of exhaust polution is no more. and last but not least a project i have alot of time in . there is a process that turns coal from a polution maker into 76% less polution that is close to what i did to raw crude. the EPA supports my units i built that have just gotten aloot of attention. infact i will show how its made and how many i can build time wise. there is something going on in washington now that i will be apart of . because i built these and made them all work. see if anyone hears about this they can comment and i will watch . and try to reply back

  • http://twitter.com/_girishrao Girish Rao

    I agree the US needs to get back to _building_ real products and _creating_ real value, not make money from money.

    One the one side of the employment spectrum, manufacturing has taken a huge hit in this country. I believe the US needs to get back to competing here, building and exporting manufactured goods.

    On the other side, information technology-based employment has exploded and needs to continue to do so. I totally agree that education, health care and energy are ripe for innovation. The US needs more engineers of all kinds.

    That said, I think entrepreneurs/startups/VCs/angels/Silicon Valley need to make a concerted effort such that the focus is on creating real societal value. I think it is easy to get caught up in trends like “social” or “checkins” that in and of themselves don’t provide real societal value. I feel Facebook and Twitter walk a fine line here, but much of their story remains to be written. What Twitter is enabling in Egypt and other countries is remarkable. Here’s hoping these and other web/tech companies can move towards _building_ real innovation and value.

  • Madison

    Great post as usual Chris. Creating transparency through the internet encourages innovation, innovation boosts economic growth and economic growth through the internet equals economic growth in society.

  • http://griyamobilkita.webs.com sewa mobil

    Nice article, thanks for the information.

  • http://www.inflexi.com/ Sitikantha Pattnaik

    All the points you have described about the prediction on the future of internet are great. You have nicely describe about all the matters. Thanks for sharing such a nice post.

  • http://www.microsourcing.com/disciplines/technical-support.asp MicroSourcing

    That opens up endless possibilities for the Internet. It’s role and treatment during the Egyptian protests is only proof of how important it has become.

  • John

    Thanks for this great article !
    Just one question : Why did you put Telecom in Already transformed and not Being transformed ?
    John

  • John

    Thanks for this great article !
    Just one question : Why did you put Telecom in Already transformed and not Being transformed ?
    John

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  • http://twitter.com/LarryFlorio Larry Florio

    “convincing the upcoming generation to innovate in sectors that have a direct impact on the quality of peoples’ lives (Internet, healthcare, energy, education) instead of wasting time on sectors that were historically prestigious (e.g. finance and law) but add little to negative economic and societal value.”

    How do you support the statement that areas such as finance and law add little to negative economic/societal value? Unrestrainted greed and smothering laws are obviously bad for both the economy and society, but that shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that there’s no value to those areas.

    Where are the Entrepreneurs getting the funding to launch their ideas? More than likely, it’s from private equity/venture capital funding or a small business loan. Finance. Where to successful small businesses go to raise further funds to grow faster and innovate more? Capital makets. Finance.

    When selling their product or service, adding partners, getting their funding, or stopping somebody from stealing their ideas, they look to the law. Contract terms and courts are there to protect people and their rights.

    Obviously these areas can be manipulated for the wrong purposes, but so can anything else, even those fields you want to see greater focus. Are finance and law the areas of greatest positive innovation? Of course not. Are they necessary and valuable? Absolutely. They support the innovation and the innovators. When people stop “wasting their time” on those fields, watch what happens.

  • http://twitter.com/zeidel Richard Zeidel

    Another great post Chris

  • http://www.lechsamgroup.com LECHSAM group

    Hidden truth in this post to entrepreneurs, borrowing from the word of @JasonFried, is to the extent you can control the future of the web, you wont need to predict it

  • http://g-a-i-a.org jazzmann91

    You focused on a horse race too.

    “There are things the US can do to keep this lead…”

    You say it best later: “even countries can’t stop this transformation..”

    So why are you focused on your country’s lead, when your country won’t matter anymore?
    ;-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Yoni-Assia/651644777 Yoni Assia

    “convincing the upcoming generation to innovate in sectors that have a direct impact on the quality of peoples’ lives (Internet, healthcare, energy, education) instead of wasting time on sectors that were historically prestigious (e.g. finance and law) ”
    I think that the first things that we must disrupt are finance and law, without significantly disrupting those fields we will waste another generation of entrepreneurship to deal with lawyers and accountants, which probably consume 80% of their time.

  • http://twitter.com/EskoKilpi Esko Kilpi

    Great post! Thank you. I would add that the modern economy runs on information – AND communication. The Internet dramatically changes our approaches to both.

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  • http://twitter.com/arieldesign ariel j

    amen

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