[Off-Topic] 3D Printing, the Legend?
First published on 2014-10-07T17:39:50+00:00
If you’ve been traveling around Jupiter for the last 3 years, you may not have heard about a new strand of production that has caused a lot of controversy and has already established itself as something viable: domestic 3D printing. 3D printing, or additive manufacturing (as opposed to today’s subtractive production), is something that has existed for 30 years. But only the big ones like 3D Systems and Stratasys held the market and only for industrial printers costing more than 100 thousand dollars. They were like the IBM of the 70s.
And just like the desktop revolution that companies like Microsoft, Compaq, Apple, and Dell helped found, now it’s the turn of startups like MakerBot and Form Labs (one of the most successful Kickstarter projects in its category) entered the scene to bring domestic 3D printers, in the under-USD-2k category, which would make them accessible not only to hobbyists but to common consumers in the future.
“But 3D printing is just for nerds.” And that was also the idea of a “personal computer in every home” in the late 70s. This is the premise of the documentary Print the Legend, which was produced and released by Netflix on September 26, 2014.
I have to say it makes me a little nervous that the “3D revolution” doesn’t seem to have reached the levels of an Apple II in the mid-80s, and even so there’s already a documentary about it. On the other hand, this documentary isn’t about exploring and defining what the manufacturing process is, the various 3D printing techniques, lasers, etc. Rather, it’s about exploring what happens when the idealism of the garage startup becomes reality and reaches the levels of an Apple in the early 80s.
The confusion is obvious during the interviews with former MakerBot employees, about how they now hate their CEO and co-founder, Bre Pettis. How his original garage vision, of a company focused on open source and open hardware, suddenly receives investment and leverage from the typical Brad Felds, and now it begins to grow from a small 12-person garage to a 200-, 600-, and more-person corporation.
Friends become enemies (and friends always become the worst enemies), people leave disillusioned, traumatized, disappointed, cruelty and authoritarianism happen as routine. At least that’s what those who left always say.
How much of this is true? We’ll never know. The truth always has 3 versions: the one I tell, the one you tell, and the one that actually happened. People start startups, normally, to be the anti-system, to be the rebels, the ones who don’t fit in, the ones who want to do things differently and change the game. This level of naïve idealism is even “cute,” and it’s necessary because if you don’t believe this can happen, it really won’t — it’s a requirement to think that way to a certain point.
But I call it “naïve” because in the very rare cases like MakerBot’s (and perhaps in the future Form Labs, since it’s walking MakerBot’s path by recently receiving its fat Series A), if you really are extremely successful in changing the system, flipping the game, then from that moment on you become the new system, the new game, the new target. You will now be the system to be fought, to be defeated.
Apple was the counter-movement to IBM in the 80s. Today it has become extremely successful and ended up becoming the new system. While in the 90s we thought Microsoft would be IBM’s successor, in the 21st century we discovered it was Apple that took on that role.
It’s up to a new garage startup to restart a new game. The most interesting part of the documentary “Print the Legend” is how it demonstrates exactly that drama, from the beginning until now, of a startup that’s walking that curse. Of how Bre Pettis went from leader of an open community of makers to “traitor” of the movement, and how the small garage startup MakerBot reached its success: it was acquired by the second largest player in the market, Stratasys, and with that was successful in growing the business.
Without giving too many spoilers, someone toward the end mentions that founders, entrepreneurs, successful CEOs always talk about the “sacrifice” it took to get where they are. Most people think sacrifice is working long hours, or not seeing family for long periods, or even going through process complications. But actually the sacrifice they may be referring to is about breaking your own identity, betraying your own principles, and crossing the lines you swore you’d never cross. And the truth is that the rare big success cases — the Microsofts, the Apples, the IBMs, now perhaps the Stratasys — demand that this happen.
The cycle will restart, and soon a new rebellious garage startup will appear and play this same game and, soon, will become the new system to be beaten. That’s the cycle of successful startups. These are exactly the rules of the game of great “success.”
Opening photo: fb.com/printthelegend