Wikimedia LLC President Lane Becker joins the Plutopia Podcast. We discuss Lane’s early career, and his involvement in UT’s ACTLab; his work in product design, AI, VR and AR; the Institute for the Future; and all things Wiki.
Lane Becker: I discovered that I wasn’t really a designer. I learned that in the best possible way, which was that I was working with some of what were, at the time, some of the world’s best designers. And I was able to sort of stand back and look at them and go, “Oh, that’s what it’s like if you’re really good at this. That’s not me. I guess I should figure out what I’m really good at.” And it turned out what I really enjoyed was actually just running the business, like running the business was the most interesting part of it, to me. Thinking strategically about what is this business, how do we grow it, how do we make it more successful, how do we understand what it actually is. You know, maybe this is also the ACTLab’s fault. I always start off by thinking I’m interested in the thing itself, and then it turns out that I’m much more interested in like – I dunno, the backstage shenanigans that go on to make the thing possible?
Links:
- Lane on Twitter
- Lane on Linkedin
- Get Lucky, a book that Lane co-authored.
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