501derful.org
Nanotech being seen as next big thing
This article about nanotech makes me laugh. All of a sudden everybody is hot for nanotech. I remember sitting in a conference just two years ago where VCs were saying, “If you can’t deliver a profitable product in five years, fergidaboudit.” Nanotech was still labeled by some as “science fiction.” Now it looks like the restless steers might stampede. The sequence is pretty predictable: indifference and skepticism—interest—pell-mell charge and bubble—bust and howls of betrayal—get down to business and really do some nanotech.
The article points out something interesting, however. It cites a Brookings study that says:
…nanotech companies are likely to concentrate in established technology centers, which offer not only research capacity, but also the entrepreneurial networks, venture capital, and professional support services that turn research into commercial products.
That’s pretty much the story I heard at the biotech conference I attended last week in Sacramento. Nanotech and biotech are nearly inseparable; biotech is often called “wet” nanotech. And any place that has done microprocessors is already partway there.
