My First iPod, And Some Thoughts on Today's AI as an Enabling Innovation

When One Innovation Plants Seeds for Many More to Come

I purchased my first iPod in 2001 at Willow Bend Mall in Plano, Texas. I had just graduated from college and was flush with enough gift cards to cover the hefty $399 charge for this sleek, futuristic device.

That simple scroll wheel. The crisp screen. The promise of 1,000 songs in my pocket.

Walking into the Apple Store back then was nothing like I had ever experienced before. This wasn’t Radio Shack, or Best Buy for that matter. Everything was so intentional. So clean. So inviting. Tall wooden tables where you could touch and try all these novel high-tech products.

And instead of pushy salespeople, the staff seemed genuinely excited to show me how my new iPod worked. It felt less like shopping and more like being introduced to something special that would change my life.

What the iPod Really Did

Back at my apartment, setting up my iPod was no small feat. It meant connecting it to my desktop computer with a FireWire cable (which used to be pretty expensive) and then using this new computer program called iTunes to organize all my music. I spent days setting it up. Importing my CD collection, downloading music, figuring out all the features. I created playlists for different moods, genres, and activities. And suddenly, I had the perfect soundtrack for every moment of my day—my morning commute, working out, studying—all in a device smaller than a deck of cards.

Soon, I learned that my iPod wasn’t just about playing music. It was creating a whole new way of living and learning.

The white earbuds became my constant companions. Soon, I figured out how to upload audiobooks. A few years later came Podcasts.

I was hooked.

The iPod was an Enabling Innovation

This experience got me thinking about a concept I've become pretty obsessed with lately:

Enabling Innovations—basically, breakthroughs that don’t solve big problems but instead create foundations for much bigger things down the road.

Think about the wheel. It was an enabling innovation. It eventually made possible wagons, gears, pulleys, and countless other inventions that shaped human history. The wheel wasn't the end. It was the beginning.

Or electricity. When people first started running wires to homes, they weren't thinking about televisions, computers, or smartphones. They were thinking about light bulbs. But that fundamental technology enabled waves of new possibilities that the original inventors couldn't have imagined.

How to Spot Enabling Innovations

I've started noticing patterns that help identify these special innovations before their full impact becomes obvious:

1. They solve fundamental constraints: They remove basic limitations that have been holding things back

2. They create new capabilities but often with unclear applications: People aren't immediately sure what to do with all the new possibilities

3. They establish new patterns of behavior: People start interacting with technology in different ways, developing new use cases

4. They reach beyond their original domain: Their influence spreads to unexpected areas

5. They often start smaller than their ultimate impact: Many people initially dismiss them

The thing about enabling innovations is that they rarely seem revolutionary at first. That's why it takes special leadership to nurture them – leaders who can see beyond immediate applications to future possibilities.

Elements of Enabling Innovation

Enabling innovations typically combine several elements:

1. Solving core problems in new ways. The best enabling innovations don't just make incremental improvements – they fundamentally rethink approaches to persistent challenges.

2. Creating platforms, not just products. They establish systems that others can build upon, multiplying their impact beyond what the original creators could accomplish alone.

3. Focusing on experience over specifications. They prioritize how people will use and feel about the technology rather than just technical superiority.

4. Building business ecosystems. They create networks of interdependent elements that strengthen each other, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Is today’s “AI” an Enabling Innovation?

I think so. Like current generative AI systems (ChatGPT, etc). They are impressive, but keep in mind that they're really just laying the groundwork for bigger transformations to come.

Think of the language models and interfaces not as the endpoint but as the foundation for entirely new ways of working, creating, and connecting that we can't fully envision yet.

When I look at new technologies now, I always ask myself not just "What can this do today?" but "What might this enable tomorrow?" That's the question that reveals the truly transformative innovations…the ones that don't just change what we can do now, but create foundations for possibilities we're only beginning to imagine.

There's something special about these gateway technologies that open doors to futures we can't fully predict. And there's a particular kind of leadership needed to nurture them – the ability to solve immediate problems while laying groundwork for opportunities beyond the horizon.

The magic of enabling innovations is that they don't just solve today's problems; they make tomorrow's solutions possible. And that's where the greatest impact often lies: not in what we complete, but in what we enable others to begin.