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href="https://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/">Startup Tools</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-62"><a href="https://steveblank.com/secret-history/">Secret History</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-68"><a href="https://steveblank.com/books-for-startups/">Books for Startups</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11025"><a href="https://steveblank.com/slides/">Slides/Videos</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-25609"><a href="https://steveblank.com/raising-money/">Raising Money</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div>  <div class="narrowcolumnwrapper"><div class="narrowcolumn"> <div id="content" class="content"> <div class="post-29339 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-harvard-business-review category-venture-capital" id="post-29339"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/" rel="bookmark">Is a Venture Studio Right for You?</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">January 17, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://hbr.org/2022/12/entrepreneurs-is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29350" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/harvard-business-review-logo/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?fit=160%2C112&ssl=1" data-orig-size="160,112" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Harvard Business Review logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?fit=160%2C112&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?fit=160%2C112&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29350 " src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?resize=103%2C72&ssl=1" alt="" width="103" height="72" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C105&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Harvard-Business-Review-logo.jpg?w=160&ssl=1 160w" sizes="(max-width: 103px) 100vw, 103px" /></a>This post <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/12/entrepreneurs-is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously appeared</a> in the <a href="https://hbr.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Harvard Business Review</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. Venture Studios are an “idea factory” with their own employees searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model. They do the most to de-risk the early stages of a startup.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Outside a small university in the Midwest, I was having coffee with Carlos, a rising star inside a mid-sized manufacturing company. He had a track record of taking small teams and growing them into successful product lines. However, after a decade working for others, Carlos was interested in building and growing a company of his own. I asked how much he knew about how to get started. He said that from what he read, the path to building and funding a company seemed to be: 1) come up with an idea, 2) form a team, 3) start testing minimal viable products, 4) raise seed funding, 5) then obtain venture capital.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As he described his work in additive manufacturing and 3D printing, Carlos said he knew that there were seed investors in his town, but venture capital was still largely on the coasts, and it was hard to get their attention. He also wasn’t sure his idea was great. But he still had the itch to grow something small into a substantive company.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As we grabbed dessert, Carlos asked, “Other than raising money, are there other ways to start a company?”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I pointed out that there were.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29355" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/venture-studio/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="venture studio" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-29355" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/venture-studio.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Reducing Startup Risk<br /> </strong>In the last two decades, three types of organizations — incubators, accelerators and venture studios — have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. Most are founded and run by experienced entrepreneurs that have previously built companies and who understand the difference between theory and practice.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I pointed out to Carlos that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_accelerator">accelerators</a> like <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/">Y-Combinator</a>, <a href="https://www.techstars.com/">Techstars</a>, and <a href="https://500.co/accelerators">500 Startups</a> offer a cohort of startups a six to 12-week bootcamp. But these look for founders who have a technical or business model insight and a team. Accelerators provide these teams with technical and business expertise and connect them to a network of other founders and advisors. The culmination of this bootcamp is a “demo day” where all startups in the cohort have a few minutes to pitch their companies to venture capitalists and angel investors. (In some cases the accelerator provides initial funding themselves.) In exchange for attending an accelerator, startups give up 5% to 10% of their company’s equity.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">There are thousands of accelerators across the globe. The business model for most of these accelerators is to select startups that can generate venture-class returns – i.e. grow into companies that can potentially be worth billions of dollars. For most accelerators, admission is by application and interview. Some, like <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/">Y-Combinator</a>, <a href="https://www.techstars.com/">Techstars</a>, and <a href="https://500.co/accelerators">500 Startups</a> are open to all types of startups in any market, while others like <a href="https://sosv.com/">SOSV, </a><a href="https://indiebio.co/">IndieBio</a>, <a href="https://hax.co/">HAX</a>, <a href="https://orbitstartups.com/">Orbit</a>, <a href="https://dlab.vc/">dLab</a> are more specialized.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/accelerators-vs-incubators-what-startups-need-to-know/">Incubators</a> are similar to accelerators in that they provide space and shared resources to startups, but usually no or very small amounts of capital. Their financial models are based on membership fees that grant access to a shared coworking space, resources, and access to other founders and operational expertise.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Carlos stirred his coffee. “Accelerators don’t sound like a fit for where I am at in my career,” he offered. “I don’t have a killer idea, or a technical team, but I do know how to build, grow, and manage teams.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>The Alternative: Venture Studios<br /> </strong>I pointed out there were organizations that might be a better fit for his skills and passion to go out on his own — venture studios. Unlike an accelerator, a venture studio does not fund existing startups.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Venture studios create startups by incubating their own ideas or ideas from their partners. The studio’s internal team builds the minimal viable product, then validates an idea by finding product/market fit and early customers. If the idea passes a series of “Go/No Go” decisions based on milestones for customer discovery and validation, the studio recruits entrepreneurial founders to run and scale those startups. Examples of companies that have emerged from venture studios, include <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-15-fi-idealab15-story.html">Overture</a>, Twilio, <a href="https://bitly.com/">bitly</a>, <a href="https://aircall.io/">aircall</a>a, and the most famous alum, <a href="https://www.modernatx.com/">Moderna</a>,</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I suggested Carlos think of a venture studio as an “idea factory” with their own full-time employees engaged in searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>How Venture Studios Work<br /> </strong>Unlike an accelerator or incubator, a venture studio doesn’t fund existing startups. It’s a company that creates multiple startups in-house, then finds entrepreneurs who take them over to grow them.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29341" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/venture-studio-pipleine/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?fit=3327%2C895&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3327,895" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Venture Studio pipleine" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?fit=300%2C81&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?fit=468%2C126&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29341" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=468%2C126&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="126" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=1024%2C275&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=300%2C81&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=150%2C40&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=768%2C207&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=1536%2C413&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?resize=2048%2C551&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Venture-Studio-pipleine.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="(max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Most venture studios create and launch several startups each year. These have <a href="http://gan-7000682.hs-sites.com/disrupting-venture-landscape-white-paper">a greater success rate</a> than those that come out of accelerators or traditional venture-funded companies. That’s because unlike accelerators, which operate on a six- to 12-week cadence, studios don’t have a set timeframe. Instead, they search and pivot until product-market fit is found. Unlike an accelerator or a VC firm, a venture studio <a href="https://www.graiventures.com/articles/what-any-investor-needs-to-know-about-venture-building-studios">kills most of their ideas</a> that can’t find traction and won’t launch a startup if they can’t find evidence that it can be a scalable and profitable company.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Comparing Startup Funding Options<br /> </strong>Venture studios are a good fit for entrepreneurs who don’t have an idea or team but would like to run and grow a startup. The venture studio’s employees have already identified a product, market fit and early customers — meaning someone else has eliminated many of the early risks of a new venture. In return for the lower risk, a venture studio typically takes a larger percentage of equity.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong> <a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29346" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/startup-funding-options/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?fit=2176%2C793&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2176,793" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Startup funding options" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?fit=300%2C109&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?fit=468%2C170&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29346" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=468%2C170&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="170" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=1024%2C373&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=300%2C109&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=150%2C55&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=768%2C280&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=1536%2C560&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?resize=2048%2C746&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Startup-funding-options.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></strong></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">There are four main types of venture studios:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Tech transfer studios</strong>, such as <a href="https://americasfrontier.org/">America’s Frontier Fund</a>, work with companies and/or government labs to source ideas and intellectual property. They then transfer the IP and build the startup inside the venture studio.</li> <li><strong>Corporate studios</strong>, such as <a href="https://www.appliedmaterials.com/">Applied Materials</a>, source ideas and intellectual property inside their own company. They then build the startup inside a separate corporate venture studio inside the company.</li> <li>A <strong>niche studio</strong> is a standalone venture studio that generates its own ideas and IP in a specific industry and domain – for example <a href="https://www.flagshippioneering.com/">Flagship Pioneering</a> , which is focused on health care and incubated LS18 — <a href="https://www.flagshippioneering.com/companies/moderna">the company that became Moderna</a>.</li> <li>An <strong>industry agnostic studio</strong>, such as <a href="https://www.rocket-internet.com/">Rocket Internet</a>, is a standalone venture studio that generates its own ideas and IP and is industry and market agnostic.</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Today there are <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-venture-studios-you-ask-we-up-724-keep-counting-celen/?trk=public_profile_article_view">around 720+ venture studios</a> across the world – <a href="https://www.enhance.online/startup-studio-map/">half are in Europe</a>. In both North America and Europe, many venture studios in non-major cities are funded by government agencies to stimulate local growth, at times with matching donations from companies. These studios have different metrics than startup studios whose limited partners are private family offices or venture capitalists.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Why Would an Entrepreneur Join a Venture Studio?<br /> </strong>While we were on our second cup of coffee, I told Carlos about the downside to joining a company created by a venture studio — how much equity/ownership they take.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In contrast with an accelerator that takes <a href="https://www.svb.com/startup-insights/startup-growth/how-do-startup-accelerators-work">5%-10% of a startup’s equity</a>, venture studios take anywhere from <a href="https://medium.com/anthemis-insights/what-are-venture-studios-and-how-have-they-evolved-with-the-market-73940b691efb">30%-80%</a> of a startup’s equity. This is because companies exiting a venture studios have been handed a startup that has de-risked of much of the early-stage startup process. (There’s a direct correlation between the amount of equity a venture studio takes and their belief in how much they want their founding CEO to be an entrepreneur versus executor.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Why would an entrepreneur join a venture studio and give up the majority of their company rather than go to accelerator? Most accelerators tend to look for a “founder type” — a stereotypical techie, fresh out of college, who already has an idea and cofounders.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Most people don’t fit that pattern. Yet many are more than capable of taking an idea that’s been stress-tested and validated and building it.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>What To Look for in a Venture Studio?<br /> </strong>As we got up to leave Carlos asked, “How would I know whether the venture studio a good one?”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">It was a great question. While there are no hard-and-fast rules, I advise entrepreneurs to ask these four questions:</p> <ol> <li><em>Is the studio run by a former founder and does it have former founders as full-time employees?</em> The most successful venture studios are founded by entrepreneurs that have previously built companies with $10+M in revenue and had 100+ employees.</li> <li><em>What percentage of equity are they asking for?</em> The answer will be directly proportional to what they think your value is. Firms asking for greater than 60% are actually hiring an employee rather than a founder.</li> <li><em>Do you want a studio with specific expertise?</em> Studios that focus on specific niches and industries can build a deep bench of domain experts – e.g. founder, advisors, and mentors – who are experts in this one field</li> <li><em>Do they have enough funding?</em> Watch out for Zombie studios. If you’ve given away a majority of your company to a studio, it would be helpful to have them around for support after you’ve started. If they don’t have enough funding to keep the lights on for several years, you’re on your own. Make sure your studio has raised more than $10m in funding.<strong> </strong></li> </ol> <div class="article-width-wrapper flexed"> <div class="article-body standard-content"> <p>A few weeks later I got a note from Carlos letting me know that he found that there was a venture studio in his city, another run by the state, and a third in his region focused on manufacturing. 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href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/is-a-venture-studio-right-for-you/#comments">6 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-29326 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-corporate-govt-innovation category-customer-development" id="post-29326"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/" rel="bookmark">Be Where Your Business Is</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">January 10, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://readwrite.com/be-where-your-business-is/"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29357" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/readwrite-logo/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=318%2C78&ssl=1" data-orig-size="318,78" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="readwrite logo" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=300%2C74&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?fit=318%2C78&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29357 size-thumbnail" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C37&ssl=1" alt="" width="150" height="37" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=150%2C37&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?resize=300%2C74&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/readwrite-logo.jpg?w=318&ssl=1 318w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a><a href="https://readwrite.com/be-where-your-business-is/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This post</a> previously appeared on the <a href="https://readwrite.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">readwrite</a> blog.</p> <p> </p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">A CEO running a B-to-B startup in needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was having breakfast with Erin, an ex-student, just off a red-eye flight from New York. She’s built a 65-person startup selling enterprise software to the financial services industry. Erin had previously worked in New York for one of those companies and had a stellar reputation in the industry. As one would expect, with banks and hedge funds as customers, the majority were based in the New York metropolitan area.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29328" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/money-washing-over-banks/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1024,1024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="money washing over banks" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?fit=468%2C468&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-29328" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=191%2C191&ssl=1" alt="" width="191" height="191" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/money-washing-over-banks.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px" /></a><strong>Where Are Your Biggest Business Deals?</strong><br /> Looking a bit bleary-eyed, Erin explained, “Customers love our product, and I think we’ve found product/market fit. I personally sold the first big deals and hired the VP of sales who’s building the sales team in our New York office. They’re growing the number of accounts and the deal size, but it feels like we’re incrementally growing a small business, not heading for exponential growth. I know the opportunity is much bigger, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Erin continued, “My investors are starting to get impatient. They’re comparing us to another startup in our space that’s growing much faster. My VP of Sales and I are running as fast as we can, but I’ve been around long enough to know I might be the ex-CEO if we can’t scale.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">While Erin’s main sales office is in New York, next to her major prospects and customers, Erin’s company was headquartered in Silicon Valley, down the street from where we were having breakfast. During the Covid pandemic, most of her engineering team worked remotely. Her inside sales team (Sales Development and Business Development reps) used email, phone, social media and Zoom for prospecting and generating leads. At the same time, her account executives were able to use Zoom for sales calls and close and grow business virtually.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>There’s a Pattern Here<br /> </strong>Over breakfast, I listened to Erin describe what at first seemed like a series of disconnected events.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">First, a new competitor started up. Initially, she wasn’t concerned as the competitor’s product had only a subset of the features that Erin’s company did. However, the competitor’s headquarters was based in New York, and their VP of Sales and CEO were now meeting face-to-face with customers, most of whom had returned to their offices. While Erin’s New York-based account execs were selling to the middle tier management of organizations, the CEO of her competitor had developed relationships with the exec staff of potential customers. She lamented, “We’ve lost a couple of deals because we were selling at the wrong level.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Second, Erin’s VP of sales had just bought a condo in Miami to be next to her aging parents, so she was commuting to NY four days a week and managing the sales force from Miami when she wasn’t in New York. Erin sighed, “She’s as exhausted as I am flying up and down the East Coast.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Third, Erin’s account execs were running into the typical organizational speedbumps and roadblocks that closing big deals often encounter. However, solving them via email, Zoom and once-a-month fly-in meetings wasn’t the same as the NY account execs being able to say, “Hey, our VP of Sales and CEO are just down the street. Can we all grab a quick coffee and talk this over?” Issues that could have been solved casually and quickly ballooned into ones that took more work and sometimes a plane trip for her VP of Sales or Erin to solve.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">By the time we had finished breakfast it was clear to me that Erin was the one putting obstacles in front of her path to scale. Here’s what I observed and suggested.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Keep Your Eye on The Prize</strong><strong><br /> </strong>While Erin had sold the first deals herself, she needed to consider whether each deal happened because as CEO, she could call on the company’s engineers to pivot the product. Were the account execs in New York trying to execute a sales model that wasn’t yet repeatable and scalable without the founder’s intervention? Had a repeatable and scalable sales process truly been validated? Or did each sale require a heroic effort?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Next, setting up their New York office without Erin or her VP of Sales physically living in New York might have worked during Covid but was now holding her company back. At this phase of her company the goal of the office shouldn’t be to add new accounts incrementally – but should be how to scale – repeatably. Hiring account execs in an office in New York let Erin believe that she had<em> a tested, validated, and repeatable sales playbook that could rapidly scale the business. The reality was that without her and the VP of Sales living and breathing the business in New York, they were trying to scale a startup remotely</em>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Her early customers told Erin that her company had built a series of truly disruptive financial service products. But now, the company was in a different phase – it needed <em>to build and grow the business exponentially</em>. And in this phase, her focus as a CEO needed to change – from searching for product/market fit to driving exponential growth.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29329" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/erins-path/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=2303%2C495&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2303,495" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Erins Path" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=300%2C64&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?fit=468%2C101&ssl=1" class=" wp-image-29329 aligncenter" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=468%2C101&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="101" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=1024%2C220&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=300%2C64&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=150%2C32&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=768%2C165&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=1536%2C330&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?resize=2048%2C440&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Erins-Path.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>Exponential Growth Requires Relentless Execution<br /> </strong>Because most of her company’s customers were concentrated in a single city, Erin and her VP of Sales needed to be there – not visiting in a hotel room. I suggested that:</p> <ul> <li>Erin had to quickly decide if she wanted to be the one to scale the business. If not, her investors were going to find someone who could.</li> <li>If so, she needed to realize that she had missed an important transition in her company. In a high-dollar B-to-B business, building and scaling sales can’t be done remotely. And she was losing ground every day. Her New York office needed a footprint larger than she was. It needed business development and marketing people rapidly creating demand.</li> <li>Her VP of Sales might be wonderful, but with the all the travel the company is only getting her half-time. Erin needs a full-time head of sales in New York. Time to have a difficult conversation.</li> <li>Because she was behind, Erin needed to rent an apartment in New York for a year, and spend the next six months there and at least two weeks a month after that. Her goal was to: <ul> <li>1) Validate that there was a repeatable sales process. It not, build one</li> <li>2) Build a New York office that could create a sales and marketing footprint without her presence. Only then could she cut back her time in the City.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Finally, she needed to consider that if her customers were primarily in New York and the engineers were working remotely, why weren’t the company headquarters in New York?</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>I Hate New York<br /> </strong>As we dug into these issues, I was pretty surprised to hear her say, “I spent a big part of my career in New York. I thought coming out to Stanford and the West Coast meant I could leave the bureaucracy of large companies and that culture behind. Covid let me do that for a few years. I guess now I’m just avoiding jumping back into an environment I thought I had left.”</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We lingered over coffee as I suggested it was time for her to take stock of what’s next. She had something rare – a services company that provided real value with products that early customers loved. Her staff didn’t think they were joining a small business, neither did her investors. If she wasn’t prepared to build something to its potential, what was her next move?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>For a startup, the next step after finding product/market fit is finding a repeatable and scalable sales process</li> <li>This requires a transition to the relentless execution of creating demand and exponentially growing sales</li> <li>If your customers are concentrated in a city or region, you need to be where your customers are</li> <li>The CEO needs to lead this growth focus</li> <li>And then hand it off to a team equally capable and committed</li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1423509037&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Be%20Where%20Your%20Business%20Is&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2023%2F01%2F10%2Fbe-where-your-business-is%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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data-src='https://widgets.wp.com/likes/?ver=14.5-a.3#blog_id=6599589&post_id=29326&origin=steveblank.com&obj_id=6599589-29326-67d625298c0bc' data-name='like-post-frame-6599589-29326-67d625298c0bc' data-title='Like or Reblog'><h3 class="sd-title">Like this:</h3><div class='likes-widget-placeholder post-likes-widget-placeholder' style='height: 55px;'><span class='button'><span>Like</span></span> <span class="loading">Loading...</span></div><span class='sd-text-color'></span><a class='sd-link-color'></a></div> <p class="postinfo"> Filed under: <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/corporate-govt-innovation/" rel="category tag">Corporate/Gov't Innovation</a>, <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/customer-development/" rel="category tag">Customer Development</a> | <a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/#comments">6 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-29364 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-corporate-govt-innovation category-gordian-knot-center-for-national-security-innovation category-technology-innovation-and-modern-war" id="post-29364"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/" rel="bookmark">Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – 2022 Wrap Up</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">January 5, 2023</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We just wrapped up the second year of our <a href="https://tigpc22.sites.stanford.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition<strong> </strong></a>class – now part of our Stanford <a href="https://gordianknot.stanford.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.defense.gov/Our-Story/Biographies/Biography/Article/1306061/dr-joseph-h-felter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Felter</a>, <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/zh-ch/people/raj-shah" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raj Shah</a> and <a href="https://steveblank.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I</a> designed the class to 1) give our students an appreciation of the challenges and opportunities for the United States in its enduring strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other rivals, and 2) offer insights on how commercial technology (AI, machine learning, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, access to space, biotech, hypersonics, and others) are radically changing how we will compete across all the elements of national power e.g. diplomatic, informational, military, economic, financial, intelligence and law enforcement (our influence and footprint on the world stage).</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="28228" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/wrapup-tigpc-2021/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Wrapup TIGPC 2021" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-28228" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Wrapup-TIGPC-2021.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>Why This Class?</strong><br /> The return of strategic competition between great powers became a centerpiece of the <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2017 National Security Strategy</a> and<a href="https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 2018 National Defense Strategy</a>. The 2021<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Interim National Security Guidance</a> and the administration’s recently released <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2022 National Security Strategy</a> make clear that China has rapidly become more assertive and is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system<strong>.</strong> And as we’ve seen in the Ukraine, Russia remains determined to wage a brutal war to play a disruptive role on the world stage.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Prevailing in this competition will require more than merely acquiring the fruits of this technological revolution; it will require a paradigm shift in the thinking of how this technology can be rapidly integrated into new capabilities and platforms to drive new operational and organizational concepts and strategies that change and optimize the way we compete.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Class Organization<br /> </strong>The readings, lectures, and guest speakers explored how emerging <em>commercial </em>technologies pose challenges and create opportunities for the United States in strategic competition with great power rivals with an emphasis on the People’s Republic of China. We focused on the challenges created when U.S. government agencies, our federal research labs, and government contractors no longer have exclusive access to these advanced technologies.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29390" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/class-1/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?fit=3940%2C1589&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3940,1589" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="class 1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?fit=300%2C121&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?fit=468%2C189&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29390" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=468%2C189&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="189" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C413&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=300%2C121&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=150%2C60&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=768%2C310&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=1536%2C619&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?resize=2048%2C826&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/class-1.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>This course included all that you would expect from a Stanford graduate-level class in the <a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/masters-degree" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Masters in International Policy</a> – comprehensive readings, guest lectures from current and former senior officials/experts, and written papers. What makes the class unique however, is that <em>this is an <span style="text-decoration: underline;">experiential</span> policy class</em>. Students formed small teams and embarked on a quarter-long project that got them out of the classroom to 1) identify a priority national security challenge, and then to 2) validate the problem and propose a detailed solution tested against actual stakeholders in the technology and national security ecosystem.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The class was split into three parts. Part 1, weeks 1 through 4 covered international relations theories, strategies and policies around Great Power Competition specifically focused on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Communist Peoples Party (CCP). Part 2, weeks 5 through 8, dove into the commercial technologies: semiconductors, space, cyber, AI and Machine Learning, High Performance Computing, and Biotech. In between parts 1 and 2 of the class, the students had a midterm individual project. It required them to write a 2,000-word policy memo describing how a U.S. competitor is using a specific technology to counter U.S. interests and a proposal for how the U.S. should respond. (These policy memos were reviewed by Tarun Chhabra, the Senior Director for Technology and National Security at the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Security Council</a>.)</p> <p>Each week the students had to read 5-10 articles (see class readings <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mbNAg1YfbpgX7pM2cJOwMbf_gBB3UcyV/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.) And each week we had guest speakers on great power competition, and technology and its impact on national power and lectures/class discussion.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mbNAg1YfbpgX7pM2cJOwMbf_gBB3UcyV/view?usp=sharing"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29378" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/tigpc-assigned-readings/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?fit=1700%2C2200&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1700,2200" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="TIGPC Assigned Readings" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?fit=232%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?fit=468%2C606&ssl=1" class="size-medium wp-image-29378 aligncenter" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=232%2C300&ssl=1" alt="" width="232" height="300" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=232%2C300&ssl=1 232w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=791%2C1024&ssl=1 791w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=116%2C150&ssl=1 116w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=768%2C994&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=1187%2C1536&ssl=1 1187w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?resize=1583%2C2048&ssl=1 1583w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?w=1700&ssl=1 1700w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TIGPC-Assigned-Readings.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px" /></a><em>Guest Speakers<br /> </em>In addition to the teaching team, the course drew on the experience and expertise of guest lecturers from industry and from across U.S. Government agencies to provide context and perspective on <i>commercial </i>technologies and national security.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Our class opened with three guest speakers; former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the CIA’s CTO and COO Nand Mulchandani and Andy Makridis. The last class closed with a talk by Google ex-Chairman Eric Schmidt.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29387" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/guests-1/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?fit=1863%2C1195&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1863,1195" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Guests 1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?fit=300%2C192&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?fit=468%2C300&ssl=1" class="alignleft wp-image-29387" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=275%2C176&ssl=1" alt="" width="275" height="176" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=150%2C96&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=300%2C192&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C657&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=768%2C493&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?resize=1536%2C985&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?w=1863&ssl=1 1863w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guests-1.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In the weeks in-between we had teaching team lectures followed by speakers that led discussions on the critical commercial technologies. For semiconductors, the White House Coordinator for <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-chips-and-science-act-heres-whats-in-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the CHIPS Act</a> – Ronnie Chatterji, and the CTO of <a href="https://www.appliedmaterials.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Applied Materials</a> – Om Nalamasu. For commercial tech integration and space, former <a href="https://www.diu.mil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Defense Innovation Unit</a> (DIU) Director Mike Brown and B. General Bucky Butow – Director of the Space Portfolio. For Artificial Intelligence, Lt. Gen. (Ret) Jack Shanahan, former director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. And for synthetic biology Stanford Professor Drew Endy – President, <a href="https://biobricks.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BioBricks Foundation</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Team-based Experiential Project</em><br /> The third part of the class was unique – a quarter-long, team-based project. Students formed teams and developed hypotheses of how commercial technologies can be used in new and creative ways to help the U.S. wield its instruments of national power. And consistent with all our <a href="https://gordianknot.stanford.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gordian Knot Center</a> classes, <em>they got out of the classroom</em> and interviewed 20+ beneficiaries, policy makers, and other key stakeholders testing their hypotheses and proposed solutions. At the end of the quarter, each of the teams gave a final “Lessons Learned” presentation and followed up with a 3,000 to 5,000-word team-written paper<em>.</em></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">By the end of the class all the teams realized that the problem they had selected had morphed into something bigger, deeper, and much more interesting.</p> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team 1: Climate Change</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>What combinations of technologies and international financial relationships should the US prioritize to mitigate climate change?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>How should the US manage China’s dominance in solar panels?</p> <p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-army-climate-change-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29457" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-1-climate-change-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 1 Climate Change cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29457 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-1-Climate-Change-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-army-climate-change-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29412" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-climate/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?fit=4032%2C3024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="4032,3024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 13 Pro Max","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1670267252","copyright":"","focal_length":"9","iso":"250","shutter_speed":"0.025","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team climate" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?fit=468%2C351&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29412" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=468%2C351&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="351" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=150%2C113&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=768%2C576&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=1536%2C1152&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?resize=2048%2C1536&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-climate.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p>We knew that these students could write a great research paper. As we pointed out to them, while you can be the smartest person in the building, it’s unlikely that 1) all the facts are in the building, 2) you’re smarter than the collective intelligence sitting outside the building.</p> <div style="padding: 12px; background-color: #e8e8e8; line-height: 1.4;"> <p><em>Jonah Cader</em>: “<span style="color: #000000;">Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition (TIGPC) is that rare combination of the theoretical, tactical, and practical. Over 10 weeks, Blank, Felter, and Shah outline the complexities of modern geopolitical tensions and bring students up the learning curves of critical areas of technological competition, from semiconductors to artificial intelligence. Each week of the seminar is a crash course in a new domain, brought to life by rich discussion and an incredible slate of practitioners who live and breathe the content of TIGPC daily. Beyond the classroom, the course plunges students into getting “out of the building” to iterate quickly while translating learnings to the real world. Along the way the course acts as a strong call to public service.”</span></p> </div> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team 2: Networks</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>How might we implement a ubiquitous secure global access to the internet in order to help circumvent censorship in authoritarian regimes?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em> Final Problem Statement: </em>How can we create an open, free Internet and maintain effective lines of communication in Taiwan in preparation for a potential invasion?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-networks-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition-255126380"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29484" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-2-networks-2-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?fit=960%2C540&ssl=1" data-orig-size="960,540" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 2 Networks 2 cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29484 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?w=960&ssl=1 960w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-2-Networks-2-cover.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-networks-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition-255126380" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">By week 2 of the class students formed teams around a specific technology challenge facing a US government agency and worked throughout the course to develop their own proposals to help the U.S. compete more effectively through new operational concepts, organizations, and/or strategies.</p> <hr /> <div style="padding: 12px; background-color: #e8e8e8; line-height: 1.4;"> <p><em>Jason Kim</em>: <em>“</em>This course doesn’t just discuss U.S. national security issues. It teaches students how to apply an influential and proven methodology to rapidly develop solutions to our most challenging problems.”</p> </div> <hr /> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team 3: Acquisition</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>How can the U.S. Department of Defense match or beat the speed of great power competitors in acquiring and integrating critical technologies?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>How can the U.S. Department of Defense deploy alternative funding mechanisms in parallel to traditional procurement vehicles to enable and incentivize the delivery of critical next-generation technology in under 5 years?</p> <p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-acquistion-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29461" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-3-acquistion-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 3 Acquistion cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29461 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-3-Acquistion-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-acquistion-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a></p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29394" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-acquistion/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?fit=3233%2C1710&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3233,1710" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team acquistion" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?fit=300%2C159&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?fit=468%2C248&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29394" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=468%2C248&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="248" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=1024%2C542&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=300%2C159&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=150%2C79&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=768%2C406&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=1536%2C812&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?resize=2048%2C1083&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-acquistion.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We wanted to give our students hands-on experience on how to deeply understand a problem at the intersection of our country’s diplomacy, information, its military capabilities, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement and dual-use technology. First by having them develop hypotheses about the problem; next by getting out of the classroom and talking to relevant stakeholders across government, industry, and academia to validate their assumptions; and finally by taking what they learned to propose and prototype<em> solutions</em> to these problems.</p> <hr /> <div style="padding: 12px; background-color: #e8e8e8; line-height: 1.4;"><em>Matt Kaplan</em>: “The TIGPC class was a highlight of my academic experience at Stanford. Over the ten week quarter, I learned a tremendous amount about the importance of technology in global politics from the three professors and from the experts in government, business, and academia who came to speak. The class epitomizes some of the best parts of my time here: the opportunity to learn from incredible, caring faculty and to work with inspiring classmates. Joe, Steve, Raj instilled in my classmates and me a fresh sense of excitement to work in public service.”</div> <hr /> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong> Team 4: Wargames</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>The U.S. needs a way, given a representative <u><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1076160/Command_Modern_Operations/">simulation,</a></u> to rapidly explore a strategy for possible novel uses of existing platforms and weapons.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>Strategic wargames stand to benefit from a stronger integration of AI+ML but are struggling to find adoption and usage. How can this be addressed?</p> <p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-wargames-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29463" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-4-wargames-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 4 – Wargames cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29463 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-4-Wargames-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-wargames-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a></p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29400" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-wargames/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?fit=2647%2C1892&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2647,1892" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team wargames" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?fit=300%2C214&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?fit=468%2C335&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29400" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=468%2C335&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="335" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=1024%2C732&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=300%2C214&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=150%2C107&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=768%2C549&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=1536%2C1098&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?resize=2048%2C1464&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-wargames.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">We want our students to build the reflexes and skills to deeply understand a problem by gathering first-hand information and validating that the problem they are solving is the real problem, not a symptom of something else. Then, students began rapidly building minimal viable solutions (policy, software, hardware …) as a way to test and validate their understanding of both the problem and what it would take to solve it.</p> <hr /> <div style="padding: 12px; background-color: #e8e8e8; line-height: 1.4;"><em>Etienne Reche-Ley</em>: “Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition gave me an opportunity to dive into a real world national security threat to the United States and understand the implications of it within the great power competition. Unlike any other class I have taken at Stanford, this class allowed me to take action on our problem about networks, censorship and the lack of free flow of information in authoritarian regimes, and gave me the chance to meet and learn from a multitude of experts on the topic. I finished this class with a deep understanding of our problem, a proposed actionable solution and a newfound interest in the intersection of technology and innovation as it applies to national defense. I am very grateful to have been part of this course, and it has inspired me to go a step further and pursue a career related to national security.”</div> <hr /> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team 6: Disinformation</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>Disinformation is a national security threat.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>The U.S.’s ability to close the disinformation response kill chain is hampered by a lack of coordination between U.S. government agencies, no clear ownership of the disinformation problem, and a lack of clear guidelines on public-private partnerships.</p> <p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-disinformation-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29465" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-6-disinformation-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 6 Disinformation cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29465 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-6-Disinformation-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-disinformation-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29392" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-babel-disinformation/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?fit=4032%2C3024&ssl=1" data-orig-size="4032,3024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 13 Pro Max","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1670258831","copyright":"","focal_length":"9","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.0083333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team Babel disinformation" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?fit=468%2C351&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29392" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=468%2C351&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="351" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=150%2C113&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=768%2C576&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=1536%2C1152&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?resize=2048%2C1536&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Babel-disinformation.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>One other goal of the class was to continue to validate and refine our pedagogy of combining a traditional lecture class with an experiential project. We did this by tasking the students to 1) use what they learned from the lectures and 2) then test their assumptions outside the classroom, the external input they received would be a force multiplier. <em>It would make the lecture material real, tangible and actionable</em>. And we and they would end up with something quite valuable.</p> <hr /> <div style="padding: 12px; background-color: #e8e8e8; line-height: 1.4;"><em>Shreyas Lakhtakia</em>: “TIGPC is an interdisciplinary class like no other. It is a fabulous introduction to some of the most significant tech and geopolitical challenges and questions of the 21st century. The class, like the topics it covers, is incredible and ambitious – it’s a great way to level up your understanding of not just international policy, political theory and technology policy but also deep tech and the role of startups in projecting national power. If you’re curious about the future of the world and the role of the US in it, you won’t find a more unique course, a more dedicated teaching team or better speakers to hear from than this!”</div> <hr /> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Team 7: Quantum Technology</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>China’s planned government investment in quantum dwarfs that of the U.S. by a factor of 10.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>The US quantum ecosystem does not generate enough awareness of opportunities to pursue careers in quantum that could catalyze industry growth.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-quantum-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition/sblank/team-quantum-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29467" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-7-quantum-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 7 Quantum cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29467 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-7-Quantum-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-quantum-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition/sblank/team-quantum-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29406" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-quantum-tech/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?fit=2964%2C2614&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2964,2614" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team quantum tech" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?fit=300%2C265&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?fit=468%2C413&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29406" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=468%2C413&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="413" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=1024%2C903&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=300%2C265&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=150%2C132&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=768%2C677&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=1536%2C1355&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?resize=2048%2C1806&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Team-quantum-tech.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a>We knew we were asking a lot from our students. We were integrating a lecture class with a heavy reading list with the best practices of hypothesis testing from Lean Launchpad/Hacking for Defense/I-Corps. But I’ve yet to bet wrong in pushing students past what they think is reasonable. Most rise way above the occasion.</p> <hr /> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong> Team 9: Lithium-Ion Batteries</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Original Problem Statement: </em>Supply and production of lithium-ion batteries is centered in China. How can the U.S. become competitive?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Final Problem Statement: </em>China controls the processing of critical materials used for lithium-ion batteries. To regain control the DOE needs to incentivize short and long-term strategies to increase processing of critical materials and decrease dependence on lithium-ion batteries.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-lion-batteries-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29469" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-9-lion-batteries-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?fit=720%2C405&ssl=1" data-orig-size="720,405" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team 9 LiOn Batteries cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-29469 size-full" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?w=720&ssl=1 720w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-9-LiOn-Batteries-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you can’t see the presentation click <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/sblank/team-lion-batteries-2022-technology-innovation-great-power-competition">here</a></p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="29410" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/team-liion-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?fit=3573%2C2181&ssl=1" data-orig-size="3573,2181" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Team LiIon" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?fit=300%2C183&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?fit=468%2C286&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-29410" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=468%2C286&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="286" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=1024%2C625&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=300%2C183&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=150%2C92&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=768%2C469&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=1536%2C938&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?resize=2048%2C1250&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-LiIon.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">All of our students put in extraordinary amount of work. Our students came from a diverse set of background and interests – from undergraduate sophomores to 5th year PhD’s – in a mix including international policy, economics, computer science, business, law and engineering. Some will go on to senior roles in State, Defense, policy or other agencies. Others will join or found the companies building new disruptive technologies. They’ll be the ones to determine what the world-order will look like for the rest of the century and beyond. Will it be a rules-based order where states cooperate to pursue a shared vision for a free and open region and where the sovereignty of all countries large and small is protected under international law? Or will it be an autocratic and dystopian future coerced and imposed by a neo-totalitarian regime?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">This class changed the trajectory of many of our students. A number expressed newfound interest in exploring career options in the field of national security. Several will be taking advantage of opportunities provided by the <a href="https://gordianknot.stanford.edu/">Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation</a> to further pursue their contribution to national security.</p> <p>This course and our work at <a href="https://gordianknot.stanford.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center</a> would not be possible without the unrelenting support and guidance from Ambassador Mike McFaul and Professor Riitta Katila, GKC founding faculty and Principal Investigators, and the tenacity of David Hoyt, Gordian Knot Center Assistant Director.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lessons Learned</strong></p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>We combined lecture and experiential learning so our students can act on problems not just admire them <ul> <li>The external input the students received was a force multiplier</li> <li>It made the lecture material real, tangible and actionable</li> <li>Pushing students past what they think is reasonable results in extraordinary output. Most rise way above the occasion</li> </ul> </li> <li>The class creates opportunities for our best and brightest to engage and address challenges at the nexus of technology, innovation and national security <ul> <li>The final presentations and papers from the class are proof that will happen</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </blockquote> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="92" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1420491715&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/technology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Technology%2C%20Innovation%2C%20and%20Great%20Power%20Competition%C2%A0%20%E2%80%93%202022%20Wrap%20Up&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2023%2F01%2F05%2Ftechnology-innovation-and-great-power-competition-2022-wrap-up%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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<li><h2>Calendar</h2> <ul> <li><table id="wp-calendar" class="wp-calendar-table"> <caption>January 2023</caption> <thead> <tr> <th scope="col" title="Monday">M</th> <th scope="col" title="Tuesday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Wednesday">W</th> <th scope="col" title="Thursday">T</th> <th scope="col" title="Friday">F</th> <th scope="col" title="Saturday">S</th> <th scope="col" title="Sunday">S</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="6" class="pad"> </td><td>1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/05/" aria-label="Posts published on January 5, 2023">5</a></td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td> </tr> <tr> <td>9</td><td><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/" aria-label="Posts published on January 10, 2023">10</a></td><td>11</td><td>12</td><td>13</td><td>14</td><td>15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>16</td><td><a href="https://steveblank.com/2023/01/17/" aria-label="Posts published on January 17, 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