this region on the cutting edge,” Myhrvold replied. “We have great people from all around the world to invent here. And then the ideas we have get worked on in the rest of the company and, hopefully, will go on to stimulate the economy here and elsewhere.”
“We’re involved in the very earliest stages of technology,” Myhrvold said. “Invention is to technology what conception is to reproduction. By having that early-stage research here, we hope to create technology follow-ons that will bubble through the whole rest of the economy. It’s a much earlier stage than most folks work. There’s a lot of risk associated with it, there’s a long time scale associated with it, but we think if you don’t plant those fundamental investments, you don’t get all those other benefits downstream.”
After the tour, Sen. Cantwell remarked to a roomful of press, “It’s incredible to have this resource in Washington state, particularly in the Bellevue area. We know the future is innovation, and to have this model of trying to break through and patent great technology is a smart business plan. For us in Washington state, it means we are going to continue to innovate, and that, I believe, is going to create jobs.”
She continued, “We live in an information age. Unique business models based on capitalizing on innovation, new information, and new ways of doing business is where job creation happens. It’s going to be where investment happens. So this is just further evidence of positioning this region of the country very well for that advent of more and more technology breakthroughs.”
Cantwell and Myhrvold know each other from back in 1993, when they worked together to oppose the U.S. government’s use of a technology known as the Clipper chip, which was based on a secret encryption scheme that could be used for wiretapping. (“He took on the Clinton administration at a time when they had just appointed him to the White House Council on Technology,” Cantwell said of Myhrvold.)
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, I spotted many familiar faces from the Seattle-area innovation community, from University of Washington leaders like Linden Rhoads and Matt O’Donnell to top technology investors like Bob Nelsen and Geoff Entress (all Xconomists, I might add).
Of course, this being Intellectual Ventures, they had to cook up something special in the ribbon cutting itself. Instead of using a big pair of scissors, Sen. Cantwell pushed what looked like a detonator, or maybe a laser switch, as staff members in flame-resistant gloves stood nearby holding fire extinguishers at the ready. The gigantic red ribbon then burst into flames and fell in two parts, to a hearty cheer from the audience.
