[Off-Topic] 3D Printing, the Legend?

First published on 2014-10-07T17:39:50+00:00

If you’ve been off traveling around Jupiter for the last few years, you may not have heard about a strand of production that has caused a lot of controversy and already established itself as viable: home 3D printing. 3D printing, or additive manufacturing instead of the subtractive production we use today, has existed for about 30 years. But the market stayed in the hands of giants like 3D Systems and Stratasys, and only for industrial printers that ran past 100 thousand dollars. They were the IBM of the 70s.

And just like the desktop revolution that Microsoft, Compaq, Apple, and Dell helped found, now it’s the turn of startups like MakerBot and Form Labs to step in. Form Labs was one of the most successful projects in its category on Kickstarter. They bring home 3D printers, under 2 thousand dollars, within reach of hobbyists and, down the road, the ordinary consumer.

“But 3D printing is just for nerds.” That’s exactly how “a personal computer in every home” sounded in the late 70s. That’s the premise of the documentary Print the Legend, produced and released by Netflix on September 26, 2014.

I’ll admit it makes me a little nervous that the “3D revolution” already gets a documentary without having reached the level an Apple II had by the mid-80s. Then again, the film doesn’t set out to explain the manufacturing process or the various 3D printing techniques, lasers, and so on. It explores what happens when the garage-startup idealism turns real and hits the level of an early-80s Apple.

The mess is obvious in the interviews with former MakerBot employees, about how they now hate their CEO and co-founder, Bre Pettis. The original garage vision, of a company built around open source and open hardware, suddenly takes on investment and leverage from the usual Brad Felds. And the company starts ballooning from a 12-person garage into a 200-, 600-, and more-person corporation.

Friends turn into enemies (and by the way, friends always turn into the worst enemies), people leave disillusioned, traumatized, disappointed, and cruelty and authoritarianism become routine. At least that’s what the ones who left always say.

How much of this is true? We’ll never know. The truth always has three versions: the one I tell, the one you tell, and the one that actually happened.

People start startups, usually, to be the anti-system, the rebels, the ones who don’t fit in, the ones who want to do things differently and change the game. This level of naive idealism is even “cute,” and it’s necessary: if you don’t believe the thing can happen, it really won’t. Thinking that way is a requirement, up to a point.

I call it “naive” for a reason. In the very rare cases like MakerBot’s (and maybe Form Labs’ down the road, since it’s walking the same path after landing its fat Series A), when you genuinely succeed at changing the system and flipping the game, from that moment on you become the new system, the new game, the new target. Now you’re the one to be fought and torn down.

Apple was the counter-movement to IBM in the 80s. It worked so well that Apple itself became the new system. In the 90s we figured Microsoft would be IBM’s successor, but in the 21st century we found out the one who took on that role was Apple.

It falls to a new garage startup to start another game from scratch. The most interesting part of “Print the Legend” is exactly how it shows that drama, from the beginning until now, of a startup walking that curse. How Bre Pettis went from leader of an open maker community to “traitor” of the movement, and how little MakerBot reached success: it was bought by Stratasys, the second largest in the market, and with that managed to grow the business.

Without giving away too much, someone near the end mentions that founders, entrepreneurs, and successful CEOs always talk about the “sacrifice” it took to get where they are. Most people picture sacrifice as working long hours, staying away from family for long stretches, or grinding through the complications of the process.

But the sacrifice they may be talking about is a different one: breaking your own identity, betraying your own principles, and crossing the lines you swore you’d never cross. And the rare big success stories, the Microsofts, the Apples, the IBMs, and now maybe the Stratasyses, demand that this happen.

The cycle will start over. Soon a new rebel garage startup shows up, plays the same game, and shortly after becomes the new system to be beaten. That’s the cycle of successful startups, and those are exactly the rules of the game of great “success.”

Opening photo: fb.com/printthelegend