This is a guest post by Eric Patrick Marr.
Mr. Yamashita probably didn’t realize he would eventually land in Lexington, Kentucky.
As a NASA engineer on the Apollo 11 project, Mr. Yamashita was busy landing men on the moon… for the first time in history.
Little did he know.
His son, Keith Yamashita, Chairman and Founder of the acclaimed SY Partners, spoke to Lexington this Friday – albeit unknowingly. But at the very end of the Business Innovation Factory‘s 6th annual summit for innovators and makers, Keith spoke softly and squarely to the heart of Kentucky.
“Dare to be great.”
In 1969, as the only Asian family in Orange County, California… as the only Democratic household in their Republican neighborhood… as a family who named their dog “Kitty,” the Yamashita family was taking their moonshot. Literally. So much so, they wound up inventing the word.
And such an ambitious atmosphere has clearly shaped Keith throughout his life – SY’s client list of Apple, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Facebook and more illustrate his affect.
“All (people) start great. We unlearn greatness. We forget about greatness. We permit the system to suppress greatness. But we don’t start that way. People start out with ideas and with imagination.
Can you preserve being fully alive and fully aware when all the magnetism in the world fights against that? When the rest of the world tells you no. No matter how big or how small your moonshot is.
Is it worth it to be great?” - Keith Yamashita
This is Lexington’s question, if not Kentucky’s. As major elections approach in November, as UK seeks a brand new President, as socio-economic fabrics are being woven with new generations assuming more leadership, is it worth it to dare to be great?
The only way to stand out is to be fully aware of how you fit into a wider spectrum, to figure out what unique part you play, given the circumstances around you.
In the 1960′s, America also wrestled with a lot of upheaval – as we do today. And in that day, President Kennedy eloquently dared us to be great.
And we succeeded. In what became a giant leap for mankind, the Eagle literally landed on the moon.
I believe our Lexington should likewise take our moonshot.
Let us now be great. Let us now be fully alive.
Nothing could ever be more worth it.
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Eric Patrick Marr visited Providence, Rhode Island last week for the Business Innovation Factory’s extraordinary annual summit. Storytellers included Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com fame; Richard Saul Wurman, creator of TED; Carmen Medina, former CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence; John Maeda, President of Rhode Island School of Design, Len Schlesinger, President of Babson College and about 30 more of the world’s most profound innovators.
Eric is the Founder of The LeXenomics Group, here in Lexington.
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An excellent sentiment, with very real implications.
Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, whose firm was largely responsible for the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) coined the phrase “make no small plans.”
This is incredibly important advice for visionaries of all stripes. One can readily modify a powerful (big) plan so that it will suit any constraint, and end up with inspirational results. But there are no happy consequences when a small (minded) plan works out.
Ran across this while reading Drew Curtis’s piece on the environment for tech startups in Lex http://aceweekly.blogspot.com/2010/09/now-reading-drew-curtis-are-startups.html
I don’t understand. What exactly did shooting for the moon get the U.S.? Wasn’t it an outgrowth of communist hysteria, coupled with a need nearly a decade later for the U.S. to show its might during the failure known as the Vietnam War?
This seems like the problem with “shoot for the moon” sentiments: it disregards reality. The U.S. got very little out of all that wasted energy. It was a useless goal, which is why nobody’s gone back since.
On the other hand, it is a great descriptor for Lexington.
@dannymayer – I seem to remember that the Apollo missions leap-frogged us to miniaturization of electronic components and some other areas of advance. I am older, the memory is a little foggy, but I think that was one of the positives I heard. For me, one of the other benefits was that we accomplished it. Sometimes Humans have to prove themselves on grand scale to remind themselves that they are capable of accomplishing anything. Made me believe we could wipe out world hunger and poverty,I still do.
For a really funny example of an alternative justification I refer you to Lewis Black’s solution to our worsening economic woes he offered up sometime in 2006 I think. He said we should just build a really big something, somewhere. People would all travel to see the really big something,,,,,,economic prosperity ensues!
Charles, those are fine things, but I guess I still don’t see how that justified a moon shot. Miniaturization of electronic components, presumably, was already occurring with US space travel. And as future events have borne out, miniaturization of electronics doesn’t seem to have needed the Moon Shot to spur its development…the moon shot was just one of the things it glommed onto. At a cost in 2005 dollars of 170 billion dollars spread out over 13 years, the Moon Program may have proved itself on a grand scale (and made the US feel good about itself while fighting communists in Veetnam), I guess I don’t get it. I wish more of that sustained Moon-time energy of scientists, budgets, intellectual inquiry, public attention and adoration, etc., had gone to addressing the more pressing issues of world hunger and poverty.
Lewis Black’s joke seems to have been read as economic policy by our area leaders. See WEG.
Danny, the jury’s still out on WEG. I am skeptical as well, but isn’t it real pretty downtown? If only they had had time to create miniature horse-farm at our own “ground-zero”! Now that would be something….
Ha! I walked by it the ground zero pasture today: those majestic bluegrass horse fences were covered with Applebees advertisements. I think I counted 4 different Applebees markers from my vantage at Main/Lime. Nothing says “put your best foot forward Lexington,” I thought, like “Applebees.” The directness of the message has a certain local beauty.
I been stockpiling beer and vodka in preparation for the open container zone downtown. I’m going along with Robbie’s advice in this month’s Chevy Chaser: nothing to do but sit back, enjoy and take what you can from it. I hope to take all 16 days.
Gov. Funded research pays off in ways that are not immediate or expected. I think that we’ve strayed a bit from the gist of the point, which seems to be more motivational than blueprint practical. That moonshot was only possible because of cooperation between gov, universities, and the private sector. We’re missing that strong dynamic here. How about a future tech startup campus here that would incubate ideas from UK into real word products? We have a strong connection to Dow Corning here in Ky, why aren’t we making evacuated tube solar collectors here? Or a million other green products?
One word and one word only explains it all.
COAL !, baby COAL !
Actually there are some start-up/uk/connected things going on at Coldstream research out Newtown Pike.
Speaking of things you can do with a closed down glass plant, what about GE’s lamp plant at Loudon and Russel Cave? It is slated for closing right now. Maybe it could be……an evacuated tube solar collector manufacturing facility?.Right next store to the Hope Center where there are plenty of people who need jobs….I have ideas, far to many for 100 hundred lifetimes my now ex says.
I was wondering about that plant when I was thinking about the tubes. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who need jobs here in Ky. China is not only embracing green tech for export, they are also creating domestic demand thru gov mandates. Which is what we should be doing. Every public building should be getting hot water from the sun and there should be tax incentives and low interest loans for every family or business that wants to as well. How can we compete with china? As energy prices rise in the near term, shipping cost will start making bulky items more expensive to ship long distance and their manufacturing is much more energy intensive because of inefficiencies. These factors will act as a tariff and cancel out the wage difference. The only thing we are lacking is leadership.
I heard the other day on one of the many news programs that a big difference for China is that they are taking a 30, 40, 50 year and more perspective on the future. Most I say the next thing to roll their eyes, but Jimmy Carter had us on the right track energy wise, but he needed four more years. Here in Kentucky in the 70′s our Kentucky Department of Energy was doing phenomenal things in what was the infancy of the modern solar revolution. Now we can’t even recognize the absolute shortness of 21 months and the ridiculousness to think that we should be out of the hole already that was eight years in the digging. How is it that the Dems are afraid to stand up and say continuing a tax cut on the first $250,000 of income for everybody is the best we can do. Yesterday it came out that there were actually some Senators who did not understand that if the middle class tax cuts were continued that everyone effectively gets a tax cut. Communication is the key, that and making sure everyone possible is registered, informed and VOTES. Please spread the word. Some Democratic Senators actually thought that if you get to $250,001 all your income is taxed at the higher rates. I just put my head in my hands and sobbed.
Rod, I agree that we’ve strayed off point, but I’ll stand behind my initial statement: motivation (and in the case of the moon shot, nationalistic motivation to outdo evil communists) doesn’t do much. In this case, it uses “dream big” mumbo jumbo to cover over the fact that a lot of research money–federal and state–have flown into Kentucky and Lexington coffers. Look at the research money that’s been pouring into UK for the past 10 years under Todd, which has been one of the main reasons why UK now has an operating budget 1 billion dollars more than it had 10 years ago. Or just read anything Todd says about UK Top 20, when he downplays undergraduate education and points to UK’s 26th national ranking in research–by far it’s highest ranking. Heck, yesterday’s paper alone mentioned 9 KY tech companies that were either started or relocated here to capitalize off funding provided by both the state and federal government. (Anti-tech that it is, KY was the only state in the nation to match completely the federal funds.) Seven of these tech businesses, if I recall correctly, were located in Lexington. In terms of tech-centers, the Coldstream Research campus, which has sat mostly vacant since I been here at an annual cost to KY students (and by extension, state taxpayers), is a space that already partially provides the infrastructure you claim is needed. I’d say Lexington has been well subsidized, at all levels, when it comes to research and technology, though as you note it offers payouts that are both delayed and unexpected. (Although this can be expected: tech jobs have been leaving the US, and the Dpt. of Labor statistics cites a number of other fields as
This is the problem with motivational moon speeches: they disregard reality. The state, city and federal governments, not to mention the state’s flagship university that is located here, do provide an inordinate amount of money and resources and infrastructure and energy to this area. To say otherwise seems a slap in the face to other, more pedestrian needs that have consistently lost out to these interests.
This is why I questioned why we’d want to hold up the moon as an example; the moon shot literally accomplished nothing, and insofar as it did, its “breakthroughs” came through a nationalized focus that was an outgrowth of state-fomented communist hysteria during a time of nearly unprecedented national economic prosperity, none of which has any relation to KY in the year 2010 (or even 1962), a smaller and infinitely poorer state that like the rest of the county is experiencing the early moments of a depression.
Reading the original article, I’m left with this: click your heels three times, aim high, and you’ll end up in Boston or the Silicon Valley. That’s not a “greatness” I want to shoot for, in no small part because it denies historical and current realities. (Also because technology, writ large with no close look at which technology we’re talking about, tends to be capital intensive and labor force-reducing.) And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Great conversation. Thanks Danny, Rod, Charles. Food for thought.