Day 1: TechCrunch Disrupt 2010
It’s almost lunch time here at the ex-Merrill Lynch office in the West Village, Disrupt’s venue this year. After the opening remarks, Charlie Rose interviewed two people: John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins and Yuri Milner from Digital Sky Technologies (DST). Both interviews were centered on the 3rd wave of innovation, this new era of social and mobile networks.
We heard about Jobs & Adobe, the iPad, and Google TV (the latest craze) but ultimately the talks settled on the potential impacts of this 3rd wave on healthcare, education, and energy. Doctors, according to Doerr, could really benefit from having devices like iPads in their office– healthcare practices are still mostly paper-based. But who is going to teach medical practitioners to convert to an iPad?
Classrooms are crippled by the fact that half of the students have internet access, while the other half don’t. How can you teach a class that’s divided this way? Finally, Doerr pointed out that out of the top 30 energy companies in the world, only 4 of them are based in the United States. Our country lags behind heavily in that department, and unless we want to be dependent on the rest of the world for alternative energy, we better get on the boat. Overall, he indicated several crucial fields where new technology would be tremendously useful, but each of them has a serious obstacle in the way of actualizing the potential.
Milner, on the other hand, talked mostly about countries outside the US with significant internet technology markets. He cited Japan, South Korea, and China alongside his native Russia as hotspots. His Russian based investment firm, DST, does late-stage investments in companies valued between $100 million and $1 billion (Facebook, for instance). The rest of his interview kind of put me to sleep– I wasn’t terribly interested in hearing about his relationship with Mark Zuckerberg.
Time for some lunch. Stay tuned for the next Disruption.
-Gabrielle