Techno-Industrials , on the other hand, are the ones riding exponential curves. They’re integrators as much as they are innovators, incorporating a number of technologies that hit just the right spot on their curves to be practically and economically useful in solving a particular challenge (new or old) in a better way.

The more and better tools, the bigger and harder challenges builders can address with them.

People are smart. We’ve solved most of the challenges that are possible to solve given the tools currently at our disposal, give or take a little given the fact that we’re also good at getting in our own way. So we build new tools to tackle new challenges.

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Building a skyscraper took all of the tools required to build a house, and many more besides: structural steel, safety elevators, fire-proofing, raft foundations, electricity, lightbulbs, plumbing, telephones, and ventilation systems. Each of those had its own history of technological development, and all came together to make skyscrapers possible.

I want to study the specific companies to understand the category more generally.

Take Base Power Company. What’s the Why Now for Base?

There are many, and that’s the point.

Growing renewable generation and electrification of demand has destabilized the grid. Batteries have gotten much cheaper. Engineers have gotten better at distributed systems software. Consumer software keeps getting better. Digital customer acquisition is

Whatever problems face us, we have more tools in the toolbox, more building blocks to solve it. And because we have digital technologies, it allows us to search the space much faster than we could before. And hence, we can come up with solutions faster than we could before.

Techno-Industrials start with the challenge they want to solve, and use every tool at their disposal, including some at the cutting edge and even some that they have to create themselves, to solve that challenge.