Can companies predict the future? Allen Nejah, founder and CEO of
SunMan Engineering, joins Aaron Wolpoff and Melissa Eaton on We
Fixed It, You're Welcome to explain why he built a connected, voice
controlled car dashboard in 2005 and then watched the rest of the
industry sell it fifteen years later. This is a conversation about
corporate innovation strategy and the distance between a good idea
and a good idea at the right time. We get into why only 12% of
advanced manufacturing companies ever commercialize an innovation
at scale, why 95% of filed patents never earn a dollar, how
quarterly earnings pressure quietly shrinks R&D ambition, why a
corporate innovation lab has to be funded and measured differently
from the rest of the business, and how large companies use patent
litigation to push small inventors out of a market. In 2005, Allen
Nejah built a touchscreen tablet that lived in a car dashboard,
connected to the internet, and answered when you spoke to it. He
called the voice assistant Genie. The iPhone did not exist yet.
Tablets did not exist yet. The carriers he pitched asked him
whether he was trying to get people killed. Twenty years later
every car on the lot ships a version of what he built, and he is
not the one selling it. Aaron Wolpoff and Melissa Eaton use his
story to work through the question sitting underneath every
innovation budget: how do you tell an idea that is wrong from an
idea that is only early? The conversation runs from Ernst and
Young's finding that just 12% of advanced manufacturing companies
ever commercialize at scale, through the legal machinery large
companies use to squeeze small patent holders out of a market, and
lands on a practical playbook for funding, measuring and killing
innovation projects without punishing the people who ran them. It
is for founders, R&D leads, product people and anyone who has
been asked to justify a project that will not pay off this quarter.
About the guest Allen Nejah is the founder and CEO of SunMan
Engineering, where he has spent more than 35 years doing product
development and prototyping across automotive, aerospace, robotics
and telecom. His team has delivered over 1,670 projects for clients
including IBM, Sony, Samsung and Apple. He is a serial entrepreneur
and a professor at San Jose State University, and he holds patents
on the connected car technology he started building in 2005. He is
currently developing what he describes as the smallest transmission
in the world, a robotic transmission his research suggests could
increase EV range by 40%. What you will learn Why Allen's 2005
connected car system was allowed only a seven inch screen, and what
that reveals about how organisations decide what is possible The
two numbers Melissa opens with: 12% of advanced manufacturers
commercialize at scale, and 95% of filed patents never earn a
dollar How a nonprofit law firm funded by the largest players in an
industry can invalidate a small holder's patent, and why Allen was
told he could go to jail for owning one Why Allen says engineers
build from product to customer, and why reversing that order is the
mistake that has cost him millions The case for funding an
innovation lab out of the cash cow rather than the operating
budget, and giving it milestones instead of company OKRs Why "fail
fast" is mostly a slogan when pilots run for eleven years, and what
rewarding the kill instead of only the win looks like in practice
How Sunman builds its own technology in the idle gaps between
client projects, and what that funding model makes possible In this
episode: - The driverless car project Allen started in 2005, and
the tablet he had to build himself because none existed yet - Why
carriers and automakers told him internet in the car would get
people killed - The Ernst and Young numbers sitting underneath most
failed innovation programs - Why engineers build from product to
customer, and why that order has cost him millions - Funding an
innovation lab out of the cash cow instead of the operating budget
- Rewarding the kill and not just the win, and why "fail fast"
usually is not fast - The robotic transmission that could add 40%
to EV range, seven years in and still waiting for a window Connect
with Allen Nejah LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-nejah/
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Disclaimer A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat
cold, and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice,
financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. These
are simply our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of
questions everyone is thinking, have engaging conversations, and
explore ideas worth discussing. If, by the end, we fixed it...
you're welcome. All trademarks, intellectual property, and brand
elements discussed remain the property of their respective owners.
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