With a PhD in physics from the University of California, San Diego, Tom Driscoll is the founder and chief technology officer of the Seattle-based firm Echoydne, which uses metamaterials to build radar technology for both commercial and defence applications. He was previously managing director of the Metamaterials Commercialization Center at the technology incubator Intellectual Ventures
What skills do you use every day in your job?
I’m thankful every day that my physics background helps me quickly understand information – even outside my areas of expertise – and fit it into the larger puzzle of what’s valuable and/or critical for our company, business, products, team and technology. I also believe it’s under-appreciated how difficult it is to communicate clearly – especially on technical topics or across large teams – and the challenge scales with the size of the team. Crafting clear communication is therefore something that I try to give extra time and attention to myself. I also encourage the wider team to follow that example and do themselves as they develop our technology and products.
What do you like best and least about your job?
The best thing for me is that every day, every task and action, no matter how small, helps bit-by-bit to build a world that is safer and more secure against the backdrop of dramatic changes in autonomy. What’s also great are the remarkable people I work with – on my team and across the company. They’re dedicated, intelligent, and each exemplary in their own unique ways. My least favourite part of the job is PowerPoint, which to me is the least effective and most time-consuming means of communicating ever created. In the business world, however, you have to accept and accommodate your customers’ preferences – and that means using PowerPoint.
What do you know today, that you wish you knew when you were starting out in your career?
I wish I’d known that anyone who believes a hardware start-up will only take three or four years to develop a product has to be kidding. But jokes aside, I believe that learning things is often more valuable than knowing things – and the past 11 years have been an amazing journey of learning. If I had a time machine would I go back and tweak what I did early on? Absolutely! But would I hand myself a cheat-sheet that let me skip all the learning? Absolutely not!
