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Enjoy this week's issue,
Innovator Founder and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer L. Schenker
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Over 90,000 people from over 250 countries gathered in Paris June 14-17 for the annual Viva Technology conference. While U.S. tech rock stars like Tesla founder Elon Musk, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Former Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers and Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince drew huge crowds, part of the conference’s raison d’etre is to showcase France’s and Europe’s technology prowess. The Innovator’s Editor-in-Chief moderated three sessions at Viva Tech, including one with Prince (see the photo) on threats to the Internet and two on AI. During the conference French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would set aside an extra €500 million, on top of the €1.5 billion already allocated, to help make the country a leader in artificial intelligence. He was joined on stage by the CEO of Mistral, a young startup that has the ambition to challenge Microsoft-based OpenAI and Google's Bard. Macron promised an additional $500 million in investment int AI, on top of the 1.5 billion pledged earlier. "In the field of artificial intelligence, I want France to be the champion and position itself at the forefront of this new industrial revolution," Macron tweeted – in French – ahead of the visit. Software République, a consortium that includes car maker Renault plus some of France’s other traditional industries and startups, chose Viva Technology to introduce a concept car called H1st Vision. The H1st Vision (which stands for Human First Vision) was designed to help the country’s auto industry remain competitive with newcomers like Tesla. The French concept car integrates more than 20 innovative technologies, from an all-new secure biometric access control system to predictive hazard alerts, optimized range and recharging, continuous monitoring of driver and vehicle health and an audio system designed with French composer and performer Jean-Michel Jarre. The consortium plans to launch 10 new services and products, incubate 50 or more startups and offer services in at least 50 locations worldwide by 2025. Read on to get the key takeaways from the conference and the week's most important technology stories impacting business. |
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| During my 25 years as CEO of Cisco, I managed through four major downturns; each time, the company emerged stronger and increased its market share. Over my tenure with the company, annual revenue increased from $70 million to $47 billion, and employees grew from 400 to over 75,000. Now, I serve as an investor, mentor, and strategic partner to startups with my VC firm, JC2 Ventures. In the last two years, I’ve run the same playbook across these startups, and we’ve seen remarkable growth – in fact, the cybersecurity companies I have invested in are growing up to 300% per year, and out of the 20 startups I have invested in, nine have become unicorns.
This is all to say, I have a good track record when it comes to surviving and thriving amid economic challenges – many of which I’ve accurately predicted. For example, I was one of the first to say we were entering a dot-com bubble in 2001, and at last year’s Viva Technology conference in Paris, I said the number one challenge businesses would face would be inflation – not the pandemic – and that a downturn was coming. The merry-go-round always stops, and when it does, you have to be ready.
So, why am I optimistic given the current economic environment? As I shared during my keynote session at this year’s VivaTech conference, while we all prefer upturns, businesses need to view downturns as an opportunity. Downturns are when great companies are formed, while the leaders who manage this period wrong will fall from grace; in fact, I predict anywhere from 30 to 50 unicorns will no longer maintain their status, and more than 30 large enterprises will fall off the Fortune 500 list.
Read on to get my top tips on how leaders can use this downturn to come out stronger than before.
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Who: Eric Hazan,an expert in strategic marketing and digital transformation issues, is Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. He is one of the leaders of the Growth, Marketing & Sales Practice in Western Europe. He also works within the High Tech, Media & Entertainment, and Telecommunications Practices, as well as in the Digital & Analytics and in the Retail Practice with a focus on marketing and strategy. Hazan, a speaker at the Viva Technology conference in Paris June 14, is the co-author of a June report on the economic potential of Generative AI.
Topic: AI and productivity
Quote: "Immediately start analyzing and testing and select use cases that will have economic impact while ensuring that you are being socially responsible and managing the organizational consequences. If you don’t move ahead on AI others will. There is no going back."
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When Dutch startup MX3D 3D-printed a fully functional stainless steel bridge made from 4,500 kilograms of stainless steel to cross one of the oldest and most famous canals in the center of Amsterdam in 2021 it required a human being to supervise every step of the way.
Next week MX3D will open its second 3D printed bridge in a a new section of the Eastern portion of the city. This time the robots did the 3D printing job alone, no human supervision required.
While building bridges is just a small part of MX3D’s business they do serve as an apt metaphor. The scale-up, one of hundreds that exhibited their innovations at the Viva Technology conference in Paris June 14-17, is building software and sensors that serve as a bridge to industry 4.0.
The Amsterdam-based company equips typical industrial robots with purpose-built tools and develops the software to control them, allowing the company to 3D prints complex structures out of metal that weigh, on average, anywhere from 5 kilos to 2,500 kilos. Customers include France’s Engine, a global energy and services group, German auto maker BMW and Japan’s Shimoda Iron Works.
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| Amount of money raised this week by Mistral, a start-up founded four weeks ago in France by French AI experts who formerly worked at Meta and Google . The record amount - Europe’s largest-ever seed round- highlights Europe’s push to help shape the global AI agenda and create a viable alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google's Bard. Arthur Mensch, Mistral's CEO, appeared on stage with French President Emmanel Macron at the Viva Technology conference in Paris June 14.
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