Did Obama Meet the Wrong Big Wave Surfers?

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., March 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- It was reported that during his recent trip to the West Coast, President Obama had dinner with a dozen Silicon Valley executives. The appearance of the technological and financial captains of industry such as John Doer (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Carol Bartz (Yahoo), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and John Chambers (Cisco) set the press wires buzzing. While these people would all be considered at the top of the tech industry heap, perhaps the President was meeting with people whose technology and the waves they created have already passed instead of meeting with people who are creating and forming the new waves that will rock the tech world.

Ken Thurber, author of Big Wave Surfing: Extreme Technology Development, Management, Marketing and Investing, sees these companies as mature - "some like Apple (Steve Jobs was reportedly seen at that dinner meeting) will surely impact the American economy as it moves forward, but the real action is forming out at sea with new surfers and technologies such as nanotechnology, wind-powered cars, extremely fast Exascale Computers and powerful new lasers being developed by the military. The future lies with serial big wave entrepreneur surfers like Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, SpaceX and runs Tesla motors, which looks to revolutionize the electric car industry, if they don't run out of cash first."

Thurber sees companies such as Oracle and Yahoo as the old world order and the new surfers like Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal), Tim Westergren (Pandora) or Jack Dorsey  (Square & Twitter) as the coming Big Wave Surfers.

Thurber goes on to say," As these new Surfers and others like them go, so goes the future of the American economy. Like any surfers there will be wipeouts and winners and losers, but without embracing them and what they represent in the innovation economy, America will be in for trying economic times and profound structural changes will occur in American society. Understanding of the current innovation economy will not be found by meeting with the current captains of industry. The understanding to forge the nation's innovation strategy will only be formed by meeting with the current entrepreneurs who are trying to spot and ride the next big wave!"

About the Author: Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D., is a renowned computer architect and has developed technology and systems worth billions of dollars. He developed the concept of "technology big wave surfing" to empower readers to understand and harness the opportunity of an ever-changing technological world.

P.S. Readers are sure to enjoy exploring the present and future possibilities described in Dr. Thurber's Big Wave Surfing!

See and read more at: http://bigwavesurfingbook.com

Order the book at: http://www.bigwavesurfingbook.com/ordering

Readers should bookmark this page for the official launch on March 29th: http://www.bigwavesurfingbook.com/promo

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SOURCE Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D.