Talk about the passion

Wired magazine recently published an insightful article called “The Madness of King George,” which documents the fall from grace of George Gilder, the technology futurist who was until very recently a Wall Street and telecom industry darling. Reading the story--which provides a compelling psychological profile of a man so obsessed with technological innovation and so certain of its ultimate dominance that he seems unable still to acknowledge the market-based realities and limitations that ultimately govern it--is enough to make anyone working in the telecom industry long for the before-the-crash days of the late 1990s, when Gilder’s endorsement of a company helped send stock valuations into the stratosphere and when the optical and wireless entities he was so fond of seemed infallible (at least to the fiscally less-informed).

I’ve always thought Gilder was a bit of a kook--but man, what a brilliant, passionate, inspiring kook he is. Listening to him wax hyperbolic on stage at his annual Tahoe-nestled Telecosm event, watching him interact with various techno-luminaries, sensing the depth of innovation and smelling the money that surrounded him and his ideas and events--it was enough to make anyone get excited about technology and everything it has (and will have) to offer the world. He may have been a great exaggerator, but his faith made others believe that what they were doing was significant and vital and exciting and great, and the phenomenon fed on itself in a microcosm of the whole expanding telecom technology belief bubble.

There is no one like Gilder left. If there is, they are in hiding. Even Gilder himself and the aura he created has receded: The headliner of this year’s upcoming Telecosm event is John Sidgmore of the tainted WorldCom, and the rest of the agenda shows only a few telecom-specific speakers. I’d venture to guess that few of the luminaries of years past will be in attendance, since many of them are no longer employed or are too busy riding the storm out. I’ll bet it won’t be anywhere near as rousing as it once was.

Telecom needs people like Gilder, celebrating innovation and carrying the torch and keeping the faith. This industry needs someone who’s so passionate about technology and what it can do that they say things like, “Fiber is made by God for communications” and that optical technology can “provide an elegant fibersphere that will enable an amazing efflorescence of creativity,” as Gilder kookily told me in 1998. In between the fraud and the bad bookkeeping and the bankruptcy and the firing, telecom needs a passionate voice.

Whose will it be?