The year was 1995. The Spring. My former classmates were preparing to graduate from high school while I worked as a hotel restaurant host and partied with my roommates in our new apartment.
One day, I’m manning the hosting station when the phone rings. A gentleman on the line tells me that I had impressed him when he came through our hotel the week before, and he wanted to see if I was a good fit for an amazing opportunity. The future is coming, he said, where everyone will be able to do all their shopping on their televisions, without leaving the house.
Granted, the public Internet was already around (barely), but I didn’t know that. And he was talking about interactive televisions! This was amazing stuff!
Check out this review of Google TV
As I watch this video, I am reminded of that day. A whole new world opened up to me, greater than I’d ever imagined. I really thought I might be in on the ground floor of something revolutionary.
Things Are Not As They Appear
As it turns out, the guy just repped for Amway, and he got me to drive from DFW all the way to freaking Kansas for a rah rah conference of pyramid schemers.
It was a great disappointment. One which taught me that I’m more gullible than I wanted to believe. I wanted the world to work in such a way that while I was throwing away my potential, something amazing would pop up out of nowhere and save me.
The “What” and the “When”
In this case, the guy’s WHAT was accurate, but his WHEN was way off. 15 years later, Google releases Google TV. Maybe a few years prior, you could connect your laptop or home computer to your tv, but they didn’t function like a tv with remote.
Maybe if I’d had a mentor in 1995 I would have made choices that prepared me for this day. Maybe I’d be sitting on a stockpile of single word domains worth millions. Whatever the case, tomorrow is here. We learn from past missed opportunities and learn to look sooner for opportunities as things evolve.
And we hope that next time we’re better prepared to capitalize on the changes rather than watch another cycle of opportunity pass us by.
