Sunday Signal: Tech’s Biggest Blunders, Google’s Missed Opportunity, and Bold Bets on Yorkshire
Where technology meets human potential – strategic insights for leaders navigating transformation. Issue #10 – Sunday 22 June 2025
⏱️ 5 min read
The Bottom Line Up Front
This week's signal cuts straight to a crucial truth: predicting the future of technology is notoriously risky, investing in bold visions requires deep conviction, and real innovation is often hiding in plain sight, especially outside traditional tech hubs.
The Authenticity Crisis: London-based Builder.ai and the Ghost of Theranos
"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get significant market share." – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO (2007) Why it matters: Profoundly underestimated the smartphone's transformative global impact, reshaping tech, media, and communication forever.
"Netflix isn't even on our radar." – Jim Keyes, CEO of Blockbuster (2008) Why it matters: Blockbuster’s dismissal of streaming led to its downfall, demonstrating how overlooking disruptive trends can swiftly end dominant businesses.
"The Metaverse will be mainstream by 2024." – Mark Zuckerberg and various industry analysts (2021) Why it matters: Despite enormous investment and hype, the Metaverse's limited adoption highlights the gap between ambitious predictions and consumer reality.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." – Thomas Watson, IBM Chairman (1943) Why it matters: Watson drastically underestimated computing potential, a reminder of how visionary leaps often seem improbable at first.
"The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." – Western Union internal memo (1876) Reality check: Telephones fundamentally reshaped global connectivity and communication.
These historical misjudgements remind us to approach innovation humbly. Recognising our blind spots helps us stay open to ideas that might initially seem absurd yet could redefine entire industries.
My Pitch Was Rejected in Favour of Google
Adapted from my latest Yorkshire Post column.
In 1998, I drove through Silicon Valley in a battered Buick LeSabre, armed with nothing but optimism and directions scribbled on paper. I pitched my startup to legendary investor Ram Shriram, who politely rejected my idea, instead choosing to back an obscure search engine called Google. At the time, investing in a search engine felt absurd; everyone was using Yahoo! How spectacularly wrong I was.
That rejection taught me something profound. Exceptional investors don’t just back businesses; they back visionaries whose insights align deeply with their own worldview and experience. Britain urgently needs more investors who dare to support unconventional ideas rather than playing it safe with predictable opportunities.
Shriram’s $250,000 Google investment grew into more than $2.5 billion. This story isn’t about missed opportunity but about understanding what makes great investors truly exceptional. If we want world-beating companies in Britain, we must cultivate more investors willing to embrace uncertainty and fund bold, transformative visions.
Backing Yorkshire’s Future: Investing in DigitalCNC
This week, Yorkshire AI Labs announced our latest investment in DigitalCNC, an innovative venture revolutionising precision manufacturing with advanced digital technologies. DigitalCNC, founded by Rob Ward, is a manufacturing software company based in Yorkshire, aiming to become a global leader in optimising factory machinery and workflows.
DigitalCNC uses machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, to offer businesses unprecedented capability to map precisely how new manufacturing methods can dramatically improve productivity. Originating from groundbreaking industrial research in partnership with the University of Sheffield and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), DigitalCNC's solutions have already delivered significant results, including substantial time savings in manufacturing processes.
This investment is part of a broader strategy by the new Oberon Yorkshire AI Fund, a multi-million-pound initiative specifically targeting innovative AI-driven businesses in the region. Deals like DigitalCNC illustrate the immense untapped potential for transformative innovation that exists in Yorkshire.
The team behind DigitalCNC exemplifies the combination of visionary leadership, practicality, and disruptive ambition that Yorkshire AI Labs seeks to support. This investment underscores our belief that transformative technology can and will thrive far beyond traditional tech hubs such as London or Silicon Valley.
Yorkshire has immense untapped potential, and visionary companies like DigitalCNC are key to unlocking this potential. By supporting businesses determined to redefine entire industries, we're placing a confident bet on Yorkshire's capacity to lead technological transformation globally.
Strategic Synthesis: Embracing Uncertainty as Competitive Advantage
These themes of failed predictions, visionary investing, and regional innovation underline a powerful strategic truth: embracing uncertainty is essential for transformative success. Those who lead confidently into the unknown, grounded in clear convictions, will shape the future.
Guiding principles:
Predict with humility, acknowledging potential blind spots.
Invest with conviction, backing bold, unconventional ideas.
Innovate regionally, recognising talent and ambition everywhere.
Immediate actions:
Reflect on your assumptions about future technology trends.
Evaluate your approach to investing or supporting innovation.
Explore opportunities beyond established tech centres.
🚀 Final Thought
Looking Forward: The Courage to Be Wrong
Real innovation requires courage; not the courage to be right, but the bravery to risk being wrong. History teaches us that groundbreaking ideas almost always defy conventional wisdom. Our role as leaders, investors, and innovators is not to predict flawlessly but to cultivate environments where bold ideas can thrive.
The future belongs to those who dare to challenge consensus, support visionary risks, and recognise potential where others see impossibility.
Keep pushing forward, and remember: being spectacularly wrong today could mean being profoundly right tomorrow.
Until next Sunday,
David
David Richards MBE is a technology entrepreneur, educator, and commentator. The Sunday Signal offers weekly insights at the intersection of technology, society, and human potential.
© 2025 David Richards. All rights reserved.