In this issue we direct our focus to something many had assumed was a relic of a bygone era: A new, pioneering American car company. Indeed, as the continued economic tumult has largely chastened the global entrepreneurial marketplace, American companies like Tesla (“Plug & Play,” page 26) continue to boldly innovate their way into the history books by imagining “big.”
Thinking about Tesla, and the entrepreneurial spirit in general, I was reminded of a Brian Eno quote from the 2007 Daniel Lanois film “Here Is What Is”:
“Everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head—that they somehow appeared there, formed in his head, and all he had to do was write them down and they would kind of be manifest to the world. But I think what’s so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing, things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing.
“I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that that’s how things work. If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head, but you are not one of them, you are just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you can say: ‘Well I know that things come from nothing very much and start from unpromising beginnings. And I am an unpromising beginning and I could start something.’”
When JB Straubel and Elon Musk started Tesla in 2003, the idea of a beautiful, all electric sports car was something that largely resided on the stages of auto shows as futurist concept designs with no commercial release dates in sight. And before that, the idea of an all electric car of any shape had been largely deemed impractical by a business community still wed to the conventions of the past. It took imagining something big, something that didn’t exist, and then having the audacity to actually attempt to execute on that imagination that brought so many of today’s innovative companies like Tesla into the mainstream reality.
The irony that economic adversity often leads to the some of the most enduring and impactful business innovations is an aphorism many seasoned business leaders are aware of. But sometimes, it’s nice to have an audacious reminder. As you move forward into the following pages, we hope that the companies and ideas in this issue serve as that reminder, and inspiration.
Adario Strange
Editor-in-Chief
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