Steve Blank Podcast
243 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 19 ratingsSteve Blank is the originator of customer development & godfather of the #leanstartup; this is his podcast.
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Episodes
Is a $100 Million Enough?
March 05, 2024 16:30 - 3 minutes - 3.45 MBCapitalism has been good to me. After serving in the military during Vietnam, I came home and had a career in eight startups. I got to retire when I was 45. Over the last quarter century, in my third career, I helped create the methods entrepreneurs use to build new startups, while teaching 1,000’s of students how to start new ventures.
Apple Vision Pro – Tech in the Search of a Market
February 24, 2024 05:14 - 7 minutes - 7.67 MBIf 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.
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – 2023 Wrap Up
February 09, 2024 17:02 - 11 minutes - 11.7 MBWe just wrapped up the third year of our Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition class –part of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Joe Felter, Mike Brown and I teach the class to: 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. Offer insights on how commercial technology (AI, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semicond...
The Secret History of Minnesota Part 1: Engineering Research Associates
January 17, 2024 18:34 - 28 minutes - 26 MBSilicon Valley emerged from work in World War II led by Stanford professor Fred Terman developing microwave and electronics for Electronic Warfare systems. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, spurred on by Terman, Silicon Valley was selling microwave components and systems to the Defense Department, and the first fledging chip companies (Shockley, Fairchild, National, Rheem, Signetics…) were in their infancy. But there were no computer companies. Silicon Valley wouldn’t have a computer company until 19...
The Department of Defense Is Getting Its Innovation Act Together – But More Can Be Done
January 17, 2024 06:53 - 8 minutes - 7.83 MBDespite the clear and present danger of threats from China and elsewhere, there’s no agreement on what types of adversaries we’ll face; how we’ll fight, organize, and train; and what weapons or systems we’ll need for future fights. Instead, developing a new doctrine to deal with these new issues is fraught with disagreements, differing objectives, and incumbents who defend the status quo. Yet change in military doctrine is coming. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks is navigating the tigh...
Even the Smartest VCs Sometimes Get it Wrong – Bill Gurley and Regulated Markets
November 09, 2023 00:09 - 16 minutes - 15.5 MBBill Gurley was one of Silicon Valley’s smartest and most successful VCs. He recently gave a talk at the All-In Summit that was really two talks in one. The first part was railing against the consequences of regulatory capture on innovation and a second part, about the consequences of premature government regulation of AI and why the incumbents are all for it. He illustrated his talk with regulatory horror stories in the telecom market, electronic health records, and Covid antigen tests.
Leaving Government for the Private Sector – Part 2
October 30, 2023 18:07 - 14 minutes - 12.7 MBLaura Thomas is a former CIA operations officer. Reading how she moved in 2021 from CIA ops to a quantum technology company offered insightful career transition advice for those leaving her agency. Most of her lessons were applicable to any government employee venturing out to the private sector.
Leaving Government for the Private Sector – Part 1
October 13, 2023 02:38 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBLaura Thomas is a former CIA operations officer. Reading how she moved in 2021 from CIA ops into a quantum technology company offered insightful career transition advice for those leaving her agency. Most of her lessons were applicable to any government employee venturing out to the private sector. This is the first of her three-part series.
Profound Beliefs
September 08, 2023 22:36 - 8 minutes - 7.74 MBIn 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.
Before there was Oppenheimer there was Vannevar Bush
August 31, 2023 03:17 - 17 minutes - 15.9 MBI 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. Here’s the story.
Lean Meets Wicked Problems
July 30, 2023 20:35 - 11 minutes - 9.86 MBI 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. Companies also face Wicked problems. In contrast, designing AI-driven enterprise software or building dat...
Reorganizing the DoD to Deter China and Win in the Ukraine – A Road Map for Congress
April 30, 2023 17:40 - 8 minutes - 7.83 MBToday, the U.S. is supporting a proxy war with Russia while simultaneously attempting to deter a China cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. Both are wakeup calls that victory and deterrence in modern war will be determined by a state’s ability to both use traditional weapons systems and simultaneously rapidly acquire, deploy, and integrate commercial technologies (drones, satellites, targeting software, et al) into operations at every level.
Playing With Fire – ChatGPT
April 04, 2023 20:58 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBArtificial Intelligence has been the technology right around the corner for at least 50 years. Last year a set of specific AI apps caught everyone’s attention as AI finally crossed from the era of niche applications to the delivery of transformative and useful tools – Dall-E for creating images from text prompts, Github Copilot as a pair programming assistant, AlphaFold to calculate the shape of proteins, and ChatGPT 3.5 as an intelligent chatbot. These applications were seen as the beginning...
Startups that Have Employees In Offices Grow 3½ Times Faster
February 16, 2023 23:42 - 6 minutes - 6.31 MBData shows that pre-seed and seed startups with employees showing up in a physical office have 3½ times higher revenue growth than those that are solely remote. Let the discussion begin. During the pandemic, companies engaged in one of the largest unintended experiments in how to organize office work – remotely, in offices, or a hybrid of the two. Post-pandemic, startups are still struggling to manage the best way to manage return-to-office issues – i.e. employee’s expectations of continuing ...
Is a Venture Studio Right for You?
January 19, 2023 18:07 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBThree 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.
Be Where Your Business Is
January 14, 2023 00:19 - 8 minutes - 8.23 MBA CEO running a B-to-B startup in needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale.
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – 2022 Wrap Up
January 10, 2023 07:12 - 15 minutes - 14.2 MBWe just wrapped up the second year of our Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition class – now part of our Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I 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 learnin...
Why The Pentagon Can’t Count: It’s Time to Reinvent the Audit
December 05, 2022 06:38 - 10 minutes - 9.56 MBIn the past, headlines about the Pentagon failing its financial audit again would never have caught my attention. But having been in the middle of this conversation when I served on one of the Defense Department’s advisory boards, I understand why the Pentagon can’t count. The experience taught me a valuable lesson about innovation and imagination in large organizations, and the difference visionary leadership – or the lack of it – can make.
The 6th Lean Innovation Educators Summit – Education & Innovation in the Age of Chaos and Disruption
November 15, 2022 21:31 - 4 minutes - 3.88 MBJoin Jerry Engel, Pete Newell, and Steve Weinstein for the sixth edition of the Lean Innovation Educators Summit December 14, 1-4 pm Eastern Time, 10 am-1 pm Pacific Time. This virtual gathering will bring together entrepreneurship educators from around the world who are putting Lean Innovation to work in their classrooms, accelerators, venture studios, and student-driven ventures.
The Three Pillars of World-class Corporate Innovation
November 12, 2022 00:35 - 5 minutes - 4.94 MBMy good friend Alexander Osterwalder, the inventor of the business model canvas (one of foundations of the Lean Methodology) has written a playbook (along with his associate partner Tendayi Viki,) From Innovation Theater to Growth Engine to explain how to build and implement repeatable innovation processes inside a company. Here’s their introduction to the key concepts inside the playbook.
A Simple Map for Innovation at Scale
October 29, 2022 19:20 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBI spent last week at a global Fortune 50 company offsite watching them grapple with disruption. This 100+-year-old company has seven major product divisions, each with hundreds of products. Currently a market leader, they’re watching a new and relentless competitor with more money, more people and more advanced technology appear seemingly out of nowhere, attempting to grab customers and gain market share.
Mapping the Unknown – The Ten Steps to Map Any Industry
October 01, 2022 18:39 - 8 minutes - 7.53 MBA journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - Lǎozi 老子 I just had lunch with Shenwei, one of my ex-students who had just taken a job in a mid-sized consulting firm. After a bit of catching up I offered he was looking a bit lost. “I just got handed a project to help our firm enter a new industry – semiconductors. They want me to map out the space so we can figure out where we can add value.
National Industrial Policy – Private Capital and The America’s Frontier Fund Steps Up
September 17, 2022 23:14 - 12 minutes - 11.2 MBLast month the U.S. passed the CHIPS and Science Act, one of the first pieces of national industrial policy – government planning and intervention in a specific industry — in the last 50 years, in this case for semiconductors. After the celebratory champagne has been drunk and the confetti floats to the ground it’s helpful to put the CHIPS Act in context and understand the work that government and private capital have left to do.
Finding and Growing the Islands of Innovation inside a large company – Action Plan for A New CTO
June 22, 2022 04:27 - 8 minutes - 7.58 MBHow does a newly hired Chief Technology Officer (CTO) find and grow the islands of innovation inside a large company? How not to waste your first six months as a new CTO thinking you’re making progress when the status quo is working to keep you at bay?
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning– Explained
June 04, 2022 23:17 - 59 minutes - 52.2 MBHundreds of billions in public and private capital is being invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning companies. The number of patents filed in 2021 is more than 30 times higher than in 2015 as companies and countries across the world have realized that AI and Machine Learning will be a major disruptor and potentially change the balance of military power.
Lessons for the DoD – From Ukraine and China
May 31, 2022 13:49 - 15 minutes - 13.6 MBLooking at a satellite image of Ukraine online I realized it was from Capella Space – one of our Hacking for Defense student teams who now has 7 satellites in orbit. National Security is Now Dependent on Commercial Technology They’re not the only startup in this fight. An entire wave of new startups and scaleups are providing satellite imagery and analysis, satellite communications, and unmanned aerial vehicles supporting the struggle.
Cram Down – A Test of Character for VCs and Founders
May 08, 2022 22:07 - 9 minutes - 8.07 MBCram downs are back – and I’m keeping a list. At the turn of the century after the dotcom crash, startup valuations plummeted, burn rates were unsustainable, and startups were quickly running out of cash. Most existing investors (those still in business) hoarded their money and stopped doing follow-on rounds until the rubble had cleared.
What Happened When Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks visited Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center
May 01, 2022 02:50 - 9 minutes - 8.78 MBIt was an honor to host US Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks at Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. (Think of the Deputy Secretary of Defense as the Chief Operating Officer of a company – but in this case the company has 3 million employees (~1.4 million active duty, 750,000 civilians, ~800,000 in the National Guard and Reserves.)
The Quantum Technology Ecosystem – Explained
April 19, 2022 22:14 - 23 minutes - 18.7 MBTens of billions of public and private capital are being invested in Quantum technologies. Countries across the world have realized that quantum technologies can be a major disruptor of existing businesses and change the balance of military power. So much so, that they have collectively invested ~$24 billion in in quantum research and applications.
The Semiconductor Ecosystem – Explained
April 12, 2022 04:07 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MBThe last year has seen a ton written about the semiconductor industry: chip shortages, the CHIPS Act, our dependence on Taiwan and TSMC, China, etc. But despite all this talk about chips and semiconductors, few understand how the industry is structured. I’ve found the best way to understand something complicated is to diagram it out, step by step. So here’s a quick pictorial tutorial on how the industry works.
What’s Plan B? – The Small, the Agile, and the Many
April 09, 2022 04:50 - 16 minutes - 15.5 MBOne of the most audacious and bold manifestos for the future of Naval innovation has just been posted by the Rear Admiral who heads up the Office of Naval Research. It may be the hedge we need to deter China in the South China Sea.
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Wrap Up
January 18, 2022 06:19 - 15 minutes - 18.8 MBWe just had our final session of our Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition class. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to give our students insights on how commercial technology (AI, machine learning, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, access to space, biotech, hypersonics, and others) will shape how we employ all the elements of national power (our influence and footprint on the world stage). At the end of the quarter, each of the teams gave a final “Lessons Le...
I Can’t See You but I’m Not Blind
January 09, 2022 01:26 - 6 minutes - 6.28 MBIf I ask you to think of an elephant do you see an elephant in your head when you close your eyes? I don’t. Regardless of how descriptive the imagery, story or text I can’t create any pictures in my head at all. 2% of people can’t do this either. This inability to visualize is called aphantasia.
The Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford
January 07, 2022 03:58 - 9 minutes - 9.36 MB75 years ago, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) helped kickstart innovation in Silicon Valley with a series of grants to Fred Terman, Dean of Stanford’s Engineering school. Terman used the money to set up the Stanford Electronics Research Lab. He staffed it with his lab managers who built the first electronic warfare and electronic intelligence systems in WWII. This lab pushed the envelope of basic and applied research in microwave devices and electronics and within a few short years made St...
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 8 – Cyber
January 05, 2022 15:24 - 7 minutes - 7.2 MBWe just completed the eighth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape the character and employment of all instruments of national power. Today’s class: Cyber
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 7 – Space
January 05, 2022 04:52 - 5 minutes - 5.68 MBWe just completed the seventh week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape the character and employment of all instruments of national power. Today’s class: The Second Space Age: Great Power Competition in Space.
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 6 – Unmanned Systems and Autonomy
January 02, 2022 19:42 - 8 minutes - 8.75 MBWe just completed the sixth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape the character and employment of all instruments of national power....Today’s class: Unmanned Platforms and Autonomy
When There Seems to Be No Way Out – Customer Discovery for Your Head
December 22, 2021 18:06 - 6 minutes - 6.39 MBAs an entrepreneur at times you forget that being in charge doesn’t mean you have to know everything. When it feels like you’re trapped facing an unsolvable dilemma, and wrestling with a seemingly intractable problem, remember that “getting out of your head” is the personal equivalent of the Lean Startup mantra “get out of the building.” Learning this was a big step in making me a more effective entrepreneur.
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 5 – AI and Machine Learning
December 20, 2021 22:55 - 8 minutes - 7.59 MBWe just completed the fifth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (America’s influence and footprint on the world stage). In class 1, we learned that national power is the combination of a country’s diplomacy, information/intelligence, its military capabilities, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and law...
How to Find a Market? Use Jobs-To-Be-Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery
November 17, 2021 01:23 - 18 minutes - 17.6 MBModern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21st century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures...
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 4- Semiconductors
November 15, 2021 05:02 - 9 minutes - 9.47 MBWe just completed the fourth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (America’s influence and footprint on the world stage). In class 1, we learned that national power is the combination of a country’s diplomacy (soft power and alliances), information/intelligence, military power, economic strength, finance, inte...
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 3 – Russia
October 31, 2021 22:08 - 12 minutes - 11.4 MBWe just had our third week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (our influence and footprint on the world stage). In class 1, we learned that national power is the combination of a country’s diplomacy (soft power and alliances), information/intelligence, its military, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and l...
Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – Class 2
October 28, 2021 03:41 - 9 minutes - 9.11 MBWe just had our second week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (our influence and footprint on the world stage). A key focus of the class is the return of Great Power competition. This isn’t an issue of which nation comes in first, it’s about what the world-order will look like for the rest of the century and bey...
Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition
October 12, 2021 02:51 - 7 minutes - 6.86 MBFor 25 years as the sole Superpower, the U.S. neglected strategic threats from China and a rearmed Russia. The country, our elected officials, and our military committed to a decades-long battle to ensure that terrorists like those that executed the 9/11 attacks are not able to attack us on that scale again. Meanwhile, our country’s legacy weapons systems have too many entrenched and interlocking interests (Congress, lobbyists, DOD/contractor revolving door, service promotion of executors ve...
Lead and Disrupt
October 06, 2021 13:08 - 7 minutes - 7.5 MBYou think startups are hard? Try innovating inside a large company where 99% of the company is executing the current business model, while you’re trying to figure out and build what comes next. Charles O’Reilly and Michael Tushman coined the term an “Ambidextrous Organization” to describe how some companies get this simultaneous execution and innovation process right. Their book Lead and Disrupt describes how others can learn how to do so. I was honored to write the forward to their second ...
Why Innovation Heroes are a Sign of a Dysfunctional Organization
October 03, 2021 18:43 - 7 minutes - 6.84 MBA week ago I got invited to an “innovation hero” award ceremony at a government agency. I don’t know how many of these I’ve been to in the last couple years, but this one just made my head explode.
The Class That Changed the Way Entrepreneurship is Taught
August 06, 2021 08:09 - 23 minutes - 23.1 MBRevolutions start by overturning the status quo. By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. Here’s why and what we did about it.
Lean LaunchPad – For Deep Science and Technology
August 03, 2021 15:12 - 10 minutes - 10.5 MBWe just finished the 11th annual Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford — our first version focused on deep science and technology. I’ve always thought of the class as a minimal viable product – testing new ideas and changing the class as we learn. This year was no exception as we made some major changes, all of which we are going to keep going forward.
You Don’t Need Permission
June 16, 2021 04:28 - 3 minutes - 3.78 MBI was pleasantly surprised to hear from Suresh, an ex-student I’ve known for a long time. A U.S. citizen he was now the head of sales and marketing for a company in London selling medical devices to hospitals in the UK National Health Service. His boss had identified the U.S. as their next market and wanted him to set up a U.S. salesforce. Suresh understood that the U.S. health system was very different from the system in the UK, not just the regulatory regime through the FDA, but the reimbu...
Your Product is Not Their Problem
June 05, 2021 16:26 - 4 minutes - 4.09 MBThere are no facts inside your building, so get the heck outside: I just had a call with Lorenz, a former business school student who started a job at a biotech startup making bacteria to take CO2 out of the air. His job was to find new commercial markets for this bacteria at scale. And he wanted to chat about how to best enter a new market.