This notion is uncanny in its parallels to the emergence of telecom in the late 1990s as an energizing force for the economy and the ability of innovators at Cerent, for example, to create new solutions to break the bandwidth bottleneck constraining the rise of the Internet [2].
A few lessons gleaned from the U.S. energy re-emergence that allowed American oil production to exceed the total of every member of OPEC except Saudi Arabia follow. These lessons match up with the lessons learned from the rise of the telecommunications industry during the late 1990s as outlined in the table below.
In the second lesson, Steve Forbes highlighted the Mexican government’s ownership of Pemex and the years of state-owned operation that have “severely stunted investment and innovation.” Charges of political interference and corruption further color the wisdom of government-run enterprises that are not accountable to the public or shareholders. Cerent faced a similar experience as it encountered stiff resistance from industry stalwarts Lucent and Nortel who employed tactics to stop the widespread introduction of multi-service provisioning platforms within the telecom infrastructure. Both government agencies and oligopolies are usually agents of halting innovation. Their interference ultimately fails.
The third lesson compels investment to take place in the U.S. as success at finding new sources of oil in other countries is subject to that government’s seizure of the mineral rights. Similarly, the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 fostered competition for business and enabled a robust telecom industry to take hold in the late 1990s. E-commerce and E-tainment, including social networking, remain thriving progeny of an expanded telecommunications infrastructure.
Consumers win, is the message gleaned from lesson four. Free markets, open competition, and new products and services offered by entrepreneurs has the intended effect of driving down costs – in these examples, gas prices fell during 2014 and basic telecommunications services costs dropped in 1999 and beyond. Thank you to the venture capitalists who take risks to spur innovation the world over.
[1] Lessons from the U.S. Energy Miracle, Fact & Comment//Steve Forbes, November 24, 2014, p.16
[2] The Upstart Startup: How Cerent Transformed Cisco (2014), Robert K. Koslowsky, https://www.createspace.com/5141130