STEVE BLANK
In Defense of Unreasonableness ““ Saving the California Coast
Posted on June 28, 2013 by steveblank
CLCV Enviro AwardsLast night Alison and I along with others were honored for environmental leadership by the California League of Conservation Voters. Here are the remarks I made.
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Alison and I both grew up on the East Coast but we’ve been fortunate to live in California for 30 years. One of the things we love most about living here is how beautiful the natural landscapes are and how close nature is to urban areas. When we had kids, we began to think about our role in protecting these California landscapes for future generations.
Alison got a head start on me by joining the board of the State Parks Foundation. I soon followed by joining the board of Audubon, Peninsula Open Space Trust and the California League of Conservation Voters. And 6 ½ years ago I was appointed to the California Coastal Commission.
As you know, for the last 35 years we’ve been running a science experiment on the California Coast: How would the Coastal Act affect California’s coastal economy?
The results are now in.
California has some of the most expensive land in the country and as we all know, our economy is organized to extract the maximum revenue and profits from any asset. Visitors are amazed that there aren’t condos, hotels, houses, shopping centers and freeways, wall-to-wall, for most of the length of our state’s coast.shutterstock_127554866
It was the Coastal Act that saved California from looking like the coast of New Jersey.
In 1976 the voters of California wisely supported the Coastal Act and the creation of a California Coastal Commission with 2 goals.
First, to maximize public access and public recreational opportunities in the coastal zone while preserving the rights of private property owners, and
Second, to assure priority for coastal-dependent and coastal-related development over other development on the coast.
For the last three decades, the Coastal Commission has upheld these directives while miraculously managing to avoid regulatory capture. It was able to do so because of three forces that sustained it: 1) an uncompromising executive director, 2) a majority of commissioners who looked past local parochial interests and voted for the interests of all Californians, and 3) an environmental community that acted as a tenacious watchdog.
The Commission has been able to stave off the tragedy of the commons for the California coast. Upholding the Coastal Act meant the Commission took unpopular positions upsetting developers who have fought with the agency over seaside projects, homeowners who strongly feel that private property rights unconditionally trump public access, and local governments who believe they should have the final say in what’s right for their community, regardless of its impact on the rest of the state.
During the last three decades, Peter Douglas ran the Coastal Commission. Unlike Robert Moses who built modern New York City’s or Baron Haussmann who built 19th century Paris in concrete and steel, the legacy of Peter Douglas is all the things you don’t see in the 1,100 miles of the California coast: wetlands that have not been filled, public access that has not been lost, coastal views that have not been blocked by hotels or condominiums. Douglas did this by standing up to developers, speakers of the state assembly, governors, and others who wanted him to be “reasonable” and to come to a “compromised solution”.
I was appointed to the Coastal Commission by a governor hoping to find a candidate with “green enough” credentials who would be “reasonable” and understand how “compromises” are made in California politics.
And for the first few years, I was reasonable. New development, sure ““just avoid the wetland. More condos””OK but watch out for the Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (ESHA).
I’m a slow learner but over the last few years, I realized that the coast of California exists as it is because the Commission had an unreasonable leader, who refused the political allure of “compromise” and who managed to keep the commission independent despite enormous pressure. And we as commissioners had to stand up to those pressures and be at times unreasonable in order to not compromise the essence of the Coastal Act.
Unfortunately Peter Douglas is gone and his unbending vision to save the coast is fading. Some current commissioners seem to want the Commission to be reasonable, and understand the reality of politics. In fact, some may even want a new “reasonable” executive director who will turn the commission into just another regulatory organization driven by the people they are supposed to regulate.
Sadly, even today with the results of an independent commission in front of us, some of our appointing authorities haven’t understood the gift that has been handed them ““ 100’s of miles of Pacific coastline, much of it unspoiled and accessible to all. And unlike other regulatory agencies, the unspoiled California Coast is finite, and bad decisions are virtually impossible to turn back once a development decision is implemented.
Over the last few years I learned that unless there is a vigilant and engaged public, lobbyists and developers will take over the commission using “reasonableness” and “fair compromise” as their watch words. It is up to individuals and our environmental organizations to become more active on coastal issues.
As Peter Douglas used to say, the coast is never saved, rather it is being saved every day,” as an ongoing process.
Unless we insist that our elected officials appoint people who are willing to prioritize the principals of the Coastal Act over both their own careers and the notion of being “reasonable” within the larger ecosystem of day-to-day California Politics, our children may one day look back at pictures of the California coast and wistfully say, “Look what our parents lost.”
Today it was with a feeling of a mission yet to be accomplished, I let the governor know that I am resigning from the Coastal Commission. My work on innovation, job creation and entrepreneurship for the Federal Government is taking an increasing amount of my time.
I’ve had a great time at the Commission. I’ve learned a lot from my fellow commissioners and hope I’ve done my part for my fellow Californians. I’d like to thank my alternate Jim Wickett on the Commision who has also dedicated his time and uncompromising votes towards carrying out the Coastal Act.
Most of all, I’m proud to have been “unreasonable” and “uncompromising” in defense of the California Coast. To be anything less risks the loss of what the Coastal Act and Peter Douglas has uniquely brought to all Californians.
Thank you for this award, and I very much appreciate all the support you have provided to me to be able to make my contribution to the California Coast and the Environment.
Filed under: California Coastal Commission, Conservation | 23 Comments »
There’s Always a Plan B
Posted on August 15, 2011 by steveblank
Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson
One of the key distinctions between an entrepreneur and an operating executive is an entrepreneur’s almost seamless agility in the face of changing circumstances versus an operating executive’s intense execution focus on a plan. World-class entrepreneurs learn how to combine both.
WTF?
Driving home over the mountains from a Coastal Commission hearing, I had time to ponder an email I received from a city official as the road wound through the Redwood trees. The Coastal Commission had found that a zoning change his city requested didn’t conform to the Coastal Act, and we denied it. I felt sorry for him because he had put together a project that depended upon the property owner, developer, unions, hotel operator, local neighbors, city council, weather, wind speed, phase of the moon and astrological sign all aligning just to get the project in front of us. It was like herding cats and pushing water uphill. Reading his email I was sympathetic realizing that if you substituted customers, channel, product development, hiring, board of directors, and fund raising, he was describing a typical day at a startup. I felt real kinship until I got to his last sentence:
“Now we’re screwed because we had no Plan B.”
Say what?
I had to read his email a few times to let this sink in. I kept thinking, “What do you mean there’s no plan B?” When I shared it with the other commissioners who were public officials, all of them could see that there could have been tons of alternate plans to get a project approved, and there were still several options going forward. But the mayor just had been so intently focussed on executing a complex Plan A he never considered that he might need a Plan B.
By the time the mountain road unwound into rolling pastures and then flattened into the farmland just south of Silicon Valley, I realized that this was a real-world example of the difference between an entrepreneur and an operating executive.
There’s Always a Plan B
My formal definition of a startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable and repeatable business model. Yet if you’ve founded a company you know that regardless of any formal definition, startups are inherently pure chaos. As a founder, keeping your company alive requires you to think creatively and independently because more often than not, conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that any original well-thought-out plan quickly becomes irrelevant. (It’s equally true for startups, war, love and life.)
The reality is that to survive requires a mindset which can quickly separate the crucial from the irrelevant, synthesize the output, and use this intelligence to create islands of order in the all-out chaos of a startup.
To do this you are instinctually creating and testing multiple hypotheses which are creating an infinite number of possible future plans. And when the inevitable happens and some or all your assumptions were wrong, you pivot your model into the next plan and continue forward. You do this until you find a scalable and repeatable business model or you die by running out of money.
Great entrepreneurs don’t just have a Plan B, they have Plans B through ∞
Lessons Learned
“¢A startup is initially about the search for a repeatable and scalable business model
“¢Most of the time your hypotheses about Plan A, B and C are wrong
“¢Searching requires agility, tenacity, resilience, curiosity, opportunism and pattern recognition
“¢Execution requires a different set of skills. At times it means bringing an operating executive
“¢Operating executives excel at focussed execution
“¢World-class technology CEO’s learned how to combine Searching and Execution (Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Bezos, Page, et al)
Listen to the post here:
Download: steveblank_clearshore_110815.mp3
Filed under: California Coastal Commission, Customer Development | 21 Comments »
Going Out With His Boots On
Posted on August 11, 2011 by steveblank
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again
Shakespeare, Hamlet Act I, Scene 2
With 37 mllion people it’s remarkable that California has one of the most pristine and unspoiled coastline in the United States. One man and the organization he’s built is responsible for protecting it.
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California Dreaming
California Highway 1, (the Pacific Coast Highway) is a two-lane road that hugs the coast from Mexico to the town of Leggett in Northern California. It’s carved out of the edge of the California almost designed to connect you to the Pacific Ocean in a way that no other road in the country does. In some stretches It’s breathtaking and hair-raising and in others it’s the most tranquil drive you’ll ever take.
It goes through quintessential California beach towns right out of the 1950′s. It has hair-pin turns that have you’re convinced you’re about to fall into the ocean. It has open farm fields and hundreds of miles of unspoiled and undeveloped land. It’s the kind of road you see in car ads and movies, one that looks like it was built to be driven in a Porsche with the top down. The almost 400 mile coast drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco is one the road trips you need to do before you die.
15 air miles away, the road parallels Silicon Valley (and the 7 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area.) In that 45 mile stretch ““ from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz ““ there’s not a single stoplight and less than 5,000 people.
The Peoples Coast
Yet there’s no rational reason most of the 1,100 miles of the California coast should look like this. 33 million Californians live less than an hour from the coast. It’s some of the most expensive land in the country. As our economy is organized to extract the maximum revenue and profits from any asset, you wonder why there aren’t condos, hotels, houses, shopping centers and freeways, wall-to-wall for most of it’s length (except in parts of Southern California where there already is.)
The explanation is that almost 40 years ago the people of California passed Proposition 20 ““ the Coastal Initiative ““ and in 1976 the state legislature followed it up by passing the Coastal Act, which created the California Coastal Commission. Essentially the Coastal Commission acts as California’s planning commission for all 1,100 miles of the California coast. It has a staff of ~120 who recommend actions to the 12 commissioners (all political appointees) who make the final decisions.
Among other things the legislature said the goals of the Coastal Commission was to: 1) maximize public access to the coast and maximize public recreational opportunities in the coastal zone consistent with sound resources conservation principles and constitutionally protected rights of private property owners. And 2) assure priority for coastal-dependent and coastal-related development over other development on the coast.
You Can Make a Difference
This week I had my public servant hat on in my role as a California Coastal Commissioner.
I don’t write about the commission because I want to avoid any conflict in my role as a public official. But today is different. The single individual responsible for running the Commission staff for the last 26 years, it’s executive director Peter Douglas, just announced his retirement.
Unlike Robert Moses who built modern New York City’s or Baron Haussmann who built 19th century Paris in concrete and steel, the legacy and achievements of Peter Douglas are all the things you don’t see in the 1,100 miles of the California coast; wetlands that haven’t been filled, public access that hasn’t been lost, highly scenic areas that haven’t been spoiled and destroyed.
There’s an old political science rule of thumb that says regulatory agencies become captured by the industries that they regulate within seven years. Yet for the 26 years of Peter’s tenure he’s managed to keep the commission independent despite of enormous pressure.
The Commission has been able to stave off the tragedy of the commons for the California coast. Upholding the Coastal Act had it taking unpopular positions upsetting developers who have fought with the agency over seaside projects, homeowners who strongly feel that private property rights unconditionally trump public access and local governments who believe they should have the final say in what’s right for their community.
Peter opened the commission up to public participation and promoted citizen activism. He built a world-class staff who understand what public service truly means.
Over the last 40 years the winners have been 37 million Californians and the people who drive down the coast and can’t imagine why its looks like it does. In spite of opposition the commission has carried out the public trust.
The coast is never saved, it is always being saved. The work is never finished. The pressure to develop it is relentless, and it can be paved over with a thousand small decisions. I hope our children don’t look back at pictures of the California coast and wistfully say, “look what our parents lost.”
As commissioners it’s our job to choose Peter’s replacement. Hopefully we’ll have the wisdom in finding a worthy successor. The people of California and their children deserve as much.
Godspeed Peter Douglas.
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