The Deployment Age

What is the Deployment Age? The concept comes from Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez. For the past 240 years, technological development and its financing has emerged in long, and broadly predictable cycles. These cycles have notable similarities, and are characterised by:

• a critical element of production suddenly becomes very cheap (e.g. oil)

• a new infrastructure being built (e.g. roads and highways)

• a period of wrenching innovation followed by a bubble (e.g. build-up to Wall Street Crash )

• a post-bubble recession (e.g. 1930s)

• a re-assertion of institutional authority (e.g. IMF, World Bank, GATT)

• a period of consolidation and wide distribution of the gains in productivity from the new technology (e.g. 1950s Golden Age of Capitalism)

Here are the four cycles and the first half of the fifth.

By this theory, we exist in the Age of Information and Telecommunications. If the theory is correct, we are on the cusp of the Deployment phase - a time when the speculative, frenzy of technology development recedes to make way for a golden age where technology has become familiar, easy to implement and deployed at scale.

I’m intrigued by the idea that history rhymes and we may be entering a new era of technology development.

I plan to write about AI and conceptual tools and methods from Design & UX, Product Management, Futures, and Innovation Management. The Deployment Age seems like an interesting lens through which to view these topics.

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital is often praised by Marc Andreesen and the other VC big-boys. It can be heavy going; start with the best summary by Jerry Neumann. Alex Danco outlines a view on how debt financing is the next logical step for startups in the Deployment Age, here.