To make the most from future readings, listen to these stories and select the character whose profession most resembles your own.
I am the CEO — the high lord of an international enterprise.
I wish to invest in promising technologies, but I am concerned that our research initiatives are unpredictable, lingering, and, to my mind, far too expensive. My expectation is to observe strategic outcomes, strong leadership, transparency and a clear ROI.
I am the Head of Innovation at a large enterprise.
My job is to search for promising innovations in the market and find the right use of them in our enterprise. It is my duty to work with internal business customers, vendors, startups, and R&D teams. I am responsible for the budget and business outcomes, and don’t desire that my reputation suffers if something goes wrong.
I am the AI Startup Founder — the disruptor, leader, and pioneer.
I build an intelligent product with a massive research component. I struggle to work with my corporate clients. They desire everything to be functional from day one, but intelligent systems require some time to collect data and become well-trained. My research team sometimes spends too much time on experimenting, and I hate to keep my clients waiting.
I am the Investor — the gracious lady of future unicorns.
I am constantly seeking out exciting new technologies and bright-minded leaders who can break the status-quo. I would not take on both market risk and R&D risk. The research projects that I am usually pitched are far too underdeveloped in both of the abovementioned senses. That being said, I understand that deep tech requires quite a bit of work before the emerging technology becomes market-ready.
I am the Product Manager — my hard work and achievements as a marketing analyst served my promotion and now I lead the product team at a large enterprise.
I am decent at people management, but I don’t always understand what my engineers and scientists are saying. Sometimes I hesitate to ask them technical questions, being afraid of looking unprofessional. At any rate, so far everything goes great, I keep everyone in the loop and my stakeholders look favorable.
I am the Vice President — the baron of the broad properties and domains at an international enterprise.
I keep my lands in order and seek to patronize up-and-coming initiatives. I value my reputation and expect no failure. If you have a working solution that can improve my operations, I am eager to lend an ear. But be warned — don’t waste my time and try to sell me fairytales and half-baked marvels of technology.
I am the Solution Architect — I have been designing complex systems for decades.
Summoned by those who aspire to engineer an ingenious device or resolve a stubborn problem, I eagerly assist with advice and example, as I have wisdom in abundance. Admittedly, at times I catch myself perplexed with newfangled technologies, which of course is a shameful burden on my shoulders.
I am the Researcher — I’m the best of my class, with excellent reviews and a draft of a PhD paper.
Five months ago I joined a research project sponsored by a large firm to find a practical use for my analytical mind and machine learning skills. I do not always understand the logic of my managers, imposing arbitrary deadlines and priorities just because “business demands it”. However, the research topic is of interest to me and oftentimes I can be found working late.