Building An Industry (And a Brotherhood) w/ Mark Swoboda
During my career at Cree, we had the opportunity to help start the LED lighting revolution that obsoleted the incandescent lightbulb and fundamentally changed how people use light.
And when most people think of the lightning revolution - they think of the Cree LED lightbulb which was introduced in March 2013.
But what they don’t realize is that companies started working on what was initially called solid-state lighting long before that. The first lighting applications actually used high power red and amber LEDs for automotive brake lights and traffic signals.
What people don’t see is what has to happen behind the scenes to create an industry from nothing. A product can’t exist without an ecosystem - and we had to develop everything from new material systems and equipment, to new distribution channels and marketing strategies, to new regulations that would allow LEDs to be used in certain applications.
When you have a really innovative idea - something that is far ahead of what the world is currently using - you have to work extremely hard to bring together all the pieces so that the idea can someday be realized - all while the company’s currently in the market work to protect their old technology through legislation and marketing activities designed to slow you down and raise doubts in people’s minds about the new technology.
On today’s episode, I speak with another industry leader who was also instrumental in helping create this eco-system and bringing about the LED lighting revolution. He first was at HP and Agilent and later part of Lumileds, which was an early pioneer in commercial LED technology, and eventually, he went on to be the CEO of BridgeLux and Intematix.
As you’ll hear in the episode, while he was at BridgeLux, our two companies were in a very contentious lawsuit against each other over intellectual property - so you’ll get some insight on another interesting and complicated side of the lighting revolution.
Oh, and I forgot one thing. This other guy? He’s my brother.
That’s right, my older brother, Mark Swoboda, was also in the LED industry and we competed, mostly friendly, against each other for many years.
But you’ll hear that this competition didn’t just start as adults. We dive into our upbringing, developing our competitive spirit from a young age, and what it was like to have a brother in the same industry as yourself.
I’ll leave you with a quote from a slightly more famous pair of brothers - the Wright Brothers:
“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.”
That’s what innovation is all about: making the impossible, possible
Please note that Kate Trevey, who is the Director of the E-LEAD program at Marquette University, was the host for this episode so that Mark and I could be interviewed together and act as a referee in case things got out of hand.
Please check out the episode in the above link. If you have an opinion on these topics, please feel free to email us through the contact page. The best ideas often stem from the intersection of different points of view. The episode is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to podcasts. Enjoy!
