Steve Blank

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Apple Vision Pro – Tech in the Search of a Market

Steve Blank

A version of this article previously appeared in Fortune. If you haven’t been paying attention Apple has started shipping its Apple Vision Pro , its take on a headset that combines Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). The product is an amazing technical tour de force. But the product/market fit of this first iteration is a swing and a miss.

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The Secret History of Minnesota Part 1: Engineering Research Associates

Steve Blank

This post is the latest in the “ Secret History Series.” They’ll make much more sense if you watch the video or read some of the earlier posts for context. See the Secret History bibliography for sources and supplemental reading. No Knowledge of Computers Silicon Valley emerged from work in World War II led by Stanford professor Fred Terman developing microwave and electronics for Electronic Warfare systems.

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Profound Beliefs

Steve Blank

This post previously appeared in EIX. In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. Think of profound beliefs as “strong opinions loosely held.” You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development.

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Before there was Oppenheimer there was Vannevar Bush

Steve Blank

I just saw the movie Oppenheimer. A wonderful movie on multiple levels. But the Atomic Bomb story that starts at Los Alamos with Oppenheimer and General Grove misses the fact that from mid-1940 to mid-1942 it was Vannevar Bush (and his number 2, James Conant, the president of Harvard) who ran the U.S. atomic bomb program and laid the groundwork that made the Manhattan Project possible.

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Lean Meets Wicked Problems

Steve Blank

This post previously appeared in Poets & Quants. I just spent a month and a half at Imperial College London co-teaching a “Wicked” Entrepreneurship class. In this case Wicked doesn’t mean morally evil, but refers to really complex problems, ones with multiple moving parts, where the solution isn’t obvious. (Understanding and solving homelessness, disinformation, climate change mitigation or an insurgency are examples of wicked problems.

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Playing With Fire – ChatGPT

Steve Blank

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. John F. Kennedy Humans have mastered lots of things that have transformed our lives, created our civilizations, and might ultimately kill us all. This year we’ve invented one more. Artificial Intelligence has been the technology right around the corner for at least 50 years.

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Is a Venture Studio Right for You?

Steve Blank

This post previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. 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.