Lessons.- How to Build Two Billion Dollar Unicorns | Terry Jones - Founder of Travelocity & Kayak

In this lessons episode, explore how new technologies are transforming industries and the future of work. Discover how the fusion of AI, IoT, and 3D printing is reshaping production and innovation. Understand why connected systems create smarter and faster organizations, and uncover how automation is redefining how people work and businesses evolve. So when you work with companies, what is the thing that you see having the biggest effect? You look at IoT, you look at AI, you look at companies that are trying to figure it a way to push blockchain into trustless transact. What's the thing that's changing companies the most that you can see the impact in the next six months? Well, I think it's the combination of AI with these technologies. So it's AI and IoT, so you move to manufacturing 4.0 where you can do predictive maintenance. And people who are doing AI and 3D printing, Boeing just got approved for the first 3D printed, or GE got approved, excuse me, for the first 3D printed engine part. Think about how that part was made before. Five subassemblers made little pieces. They sent them to an assembler, put it together, put it in a warehouse, put it on a ship, put it on a truck, and got it to GE. Now, GE gets apart that's cheaper, lighter, faster, stronger, and no inventory. And people say, well, 3D printing is slow. It only has to be faster than the ship from Asia, right? And it is. So, you know, I think it's the combination of people taking big data and AI and putting it behind whether it's robotics or blockchain or drones to really change products. And the other I think big change you're seeing is cloud connected products. So, companies are seeing that cloud connect them products allow them to act like a web company. And a web company, like Travelocity, we knew what every customer was doing every day. We watched every interaction and saved it and improved our product because of it and communicated with the customer. Well, now John Deere has an internet connected tractor. They don't have to wait for the annual meeting to ask the dealer, well, what are the farmers doing this year? They know every minute and they can go out and update that tractor and delight the customer just like my Tesla. It gets new every month. I get new stuff. And what car ever did that before? So, by being cloud connected, you're a faster learner and you're faster to change to market needs and customer needs. And these are all these are all these are all organizational changes now. Take it a level further or a level deeper future of work. What are you seeing with companies now because now you mentioned a few things and future of working two ways. Future of work in terms of how people work, but also future of work in terms of what jobs are people going to be doing. Right. Well, and they're both changing. You know, recent surveys show that most leaders want everyone back in the office. But most workers want a flexible schedule. They like two days in the office and three days at home or something like that. So I think there's going to be a collision here. And I think the workers are going to win because we have great demand for labor right now. And you know, two of the boards I'm on companies, one company has sold all their real estate and others sold off half of it already. They're just not planning on coming back because the CFO loves the economics and the productivity is good. Yeah, it depends what business you're in obviously a manufacturing business can't do the same thing. So I think we're going to see much more and continued work from anywhere. And it's going to be part office, part not. I think we have to be careful not to lose the creativity aspect that that evolves from bouncing into other people and talking with them at the water cooler or whatever. And then I think, you know, jobs are changing. And we're automating lots of mundane tasks and robotic process automation combined with AI is getting rid of a lot of those tasks. But on the other hand, we're learning new tasks like, you know, a great video salesperson is in terrific demand right now. You know, somebody you can build a relationship and close deals without ever going there. That's, that's a big new deal. Data analytics is screaming off the chart. Anybody can analyze all those big data because, you know, some companies have these crystal clear data lakes, but most people have data swamps. And, you know, we've got to change that to use these data to, to great effect. So I think work will change. I think another big thing we haven't talked about is how business models are changing. So, you know, kayak is one of those asset list, asset list companies that just puts, you know, creates a platform putting buyers and sellers together and is worth $2 billion. But do we have other new models like outcomes? So Phillips, the lighting company recently went to skip all airport and Amsterdam said, we're not going to sell you light bulbs anymore. We want to say a light. I said, what? We want to light your airport. We want a 20 year contract to light the airport and they got it. So what do they do? They immediately. What does that mean? No, what just for that example? Yeah. We'll keep your airport lit. We will pay for the power. We'll keep the bulbs there. We'll make sure everything is lit all the time. So you don't have to have people changing bulbs. You don't have to pay for the power. We'll just light the airport. And it's lighting as a service. Last. So what do they do? They put in bulbs that last 75% longer that they weren't selling before. They put the same bulbs use half the power because Phillips is paying for the power. And they even recycle the bulbs and remanufactured them out because it's in their interest. So they've went from selling bulbs to selling a long term highly profitable contract. And they saved a ton of money for the airport. So Honeywell is doing things like that. GE is selling power by the hour. You know, and then we're seeing models like subscriptions for things we never thought we'd subscribe to like dinner. You know, I subscribe to a box meal service or razors. And who thought you'd subscribe to razors billion dollar business. And then people are gone direct to consumer on crazy things like D to C suitcases and D to C mattresses. Now things we always had to go to the store for now suddenly. We don't. I mean, who would have thought you'd buy a mattress online and get a hundred day try it. But so we have. And you can ship it back if you don't like it. Yeah. If you do that or just changing experience, just changing customer experience. I mean, Apple killed Nokia by changing the phone experience. Spotify killed the iTunes by going to streaming. Right. What what about Uber? They're just a cab company with software. I mean, that's the difference. It's just software, but it's a better user experience. People are looking at new ways to disrupt by changing the model or changing the customer experience or both. So we spoke. So I think that's an incredible insight. And you spoke about some use cases for large companies that are looking to disrupt. But also you spoke about some existing startups that obviously have disrupted. What are some other startups that people or use cases that people may not know about that are innovating. And you think they will be mega disruptors and completely display some major incumbents in the next two years. Do you have any? About the next two years. Any example. Take, I met a company three years ago, zipline. And they started doing drone deliveries of blood in Africa. And because it's very hard. The roads aren't good. Blood is perishable. And they said we started in Africa because they don't have any drone rules. If you want to start in New York state where they wouldn't let us do it. It was very smart. And, you know, they said, you talk about software crashing. They said, well, our airplanes crashed a bunch. You know, we had to learn how to out of fly these drones. And, you know, they catch up in a net. It's crazy. But now they got noticed in the US. They've got a huge trial in North Carolina. Flying COVID tests and drugs and blood to remote hospitals. So drone delivery got approved during COVID. I think it's going to go like crazy. There's another city in the Southwest or Southeast where they started doing drone testing as a world place. And most people were opposed to it. Now they're hooked on it. They love it. So that's going to grow very fast. And I think that we're going to see manufacturing change as well dramatically with 3D printing. And I think there's going to be a lot of 3D printing that's done by boutique houses that will create things. So taking AI to iterate 1000 CAD designs that could never be built. But they can only be built by 3D and then showing like Ford did recently. They re engineered a seat bracket. This is sort of mundane thing. But guess what? It's twice as strong and it weighs 30% less. Well, think about all the parts in your car that might weigh 30% less. What would that do to mileage? It can only be done through 3D printing. So I think those two are really exciting. But my book talks about 10 technologies that are coming to change the world. And that's the first half with examples, you know, like like drone fire drones using for firefighting and blockchain for smart contracts. But the second part of the book is what do you do about it? So the first part of the book is to scare the hell out of you. And the same part of the book is to say, you're listening there. What can I do? Like increase risk, test more, go projects, not people. But you can turn that book around for an entrepreneur and say, these are the places where you want to go think about a new idea. Because these are places where corporations will move slowly. And the books, both books are kind of cookbooks. They're 72 three page chapters. So they're super fast to read. And you can use it as a, as a how to book. Do you see, do you see these ideas being adopted by some legacy organizations? Do you like who, who's buying this book? Is it, is it just the, the, the person who's already in line with innovation is already looking into these technologies? Or do you see some people that are talking to you, buying the book, trying to understand these ideas that are in companies that are 100 years old? Oh, yeah, sure. Not the GE's or the IBM's or what, some of the, some of the other ones. I mean, I mean, Mac truck is, is deploying IoT and all their trucks. I just talked to the largest truck stop, which is on I 80 in Iowa. And we were talking about, look, if Mac has smart trucks, then you got to work with them. So you have sensors at your, at your stop. So you can say, hey, this truck is coming. It's not going to make it across the country without new breaks. We can fix it and get you back on the road in four hours and you can actually bid on it. So the connection of big brands who are automating, you know, they need people to help them wherever they are. That's what GE is doing with their jet engines. So yes, large companies are looking at this and saying, how can I deploy 5G with IoT to have smarter networks in my factories? And one of the companies I'm on the board of is doing that. But at the same time, smaller companies are looking at these technologies and partnering up with large companies to help them do things that the large lumbering giant just can't get done quickly enough. Thanks for tuning in. 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