i3 - November/December 2017 - 2

From the CEO

Twitter AMAZON Facebook

SALESFORCE
Apple
Google Wikipedia Uber Airbnb

Microsoft
NVIDIA

TRIPADVISOR

Pandora INTEL

ORACLE

Qualcomm

The Disappearing American Tech Halo

It would seem
natural that
government
should focus
on and fight
for American
innovation
and its leading
companies as
a matter of
national policy.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017

Everything runs in cycles. Our economy.
Our politics. Our appliances. And the
national view on tech.
Every new technology follows a media
cycle: color TV, microwave ovens, CDs,
MP3s, personal computers, wireless phones,
HDTV, the internet, tablets, smartphones
and wearable health. Cynics often dominate
the media at first. But soon, delighted consumers vote with their dollars and the products succeed. The story shifts to growth, new
features and lower prices.
Similarly, the American view of tech has
changed. Admiral, Dell, GE, IBM, RCA and
Zenith were strong dominant American companies. But then came the Japanese brands
in the 70s and 80s, the Koreans in the 90s
and the Chinese more recently.
But Americans dominated the internet era
with platforms like Amazon, Apple, Facebook,
Google and Twitter. Along with chipmakers
Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm, and market
leaders like Airbnb, Microsoft, Oracle,
Pandora, Salesforce, TripAdvisor, Uber and
Wikipedia, American companies rule. Yes,
China has worthy competitors, but it restricts
access to its market for American leaders.
Given America's re-emergence as a world
tech leader, it would seem natural that our
government would focus on and fight for
American innovation and its leading companies as a matter of national policy. Every other
developed country in the world would beg,
borrow or steal to seduce an American tech
corporation to shift their headquarters.
Instead, we increasingly see our own politicians and media hostile to and critical of our
most successful companies. This hostility
is a green light to European regulators using
ambiguous laws to impose huge fines and
totalitarian countries that want to restrict
access and seek control of U.S. companies.

Certainly, we need a frank discussion.
Our wonderful innovations raise new
questions on market size, jobs, privacy,
tracking, election influence, censorship,
cybersecurity and even terrorism. But
the same technologies also provide huge
benefits to health, safety, mobility, agriculture and education. As always, technology
is wonderful and advances the human
condition. But from the advent of the
arrow and fire to today's drones, robots,
self-driving cars, 3D printers and artificial
intelligence, it is what we do with it and
how we use innovation that can either
advance or hurt us.
At CTA, we don't avoid these tough
issues. We engage the public and policymakers. We advocate for innovation.
We urge government to let innovation
find its path. We advocate for regulation
that is focused on a specific harm.
We also promote the benefits of innovation. We created the Disruptive Innovation
Council in 2015 to advocate for innovative
companies making life better. We are now
launching our "Let's Go Humans" campaign, which is a marketing effort conveying how innovation improves lives.
Our journey is just beginning. The human
condition will improve. Our job is to make
sure well-intentioned policymakers don't
mow down the green shoots of our future.

Gary Shapiro,
President and CEO

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

i3 - November/December 2017

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