Last month I sat down with my old pal Jay Adelson (Digg, Revision 3, Equinix, SimpleGeo) who together with his partner Andy Smith is raising a new fund focused on the Internet of Things. Our goal was to get caught up – I’d tell him about my plans for NewCo, and they’d update me on Center Electric, the fund’s new name.
Along the way Jay shared with me this graphic, which I thought worthy of sharing here. What I like about it is how Jay and Andy think about the Internet of Things holistically – most of us focus only on the things, but take the Internet for granted. But it’s worth remembering that objects only become magical when they are connected in some way, and data flows to and from them meaningfully.
More than 50 billion “things” will be connected in some way to the Internet over the next decade, and all of those things will require a massive re-thinking of infrastructure, services, UX/UI, and inter-connectivity. That’s one humongous opportunity – but only if you think systemically. My post on the role adtech will play in this ecosystem is one such attempt, I am sure there are (and will be) many more.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching the investments made by firms like Center Electric. It’s a promising thesis.