For a while during the late 1990s, it was almost possible to believe we were headed toward change on the scale you're talking about. Were you at all thrilled or inspired by the rise of the Internet economy?

I was confused by it. I thought you were supposed to add value to a business, and the value you added was so great that the money you took in was greater than what you spent. I was approached by a lot of dot-com companies that wanted me to serve on their boards. I would ask them, "Do you have any idea what kind of business you're going into?" This is mail order. It's a tough, tough business. Ask Sears Roebuck. Ask Montgomery Ward. It's a low-margin retail business, and the Internet made it worse because you could price-compare so easily. I could not figure out why the VCs were pouring $10 million, $20 million, $30 million into these things.

It sure was a great time to be an entrepreneur in America, though.

Just the opposite. The last five years was actually one of the most difficult times to start a business. Because there was very little judgment, no real discernment, very little discipline. Money was too freely available, and therefore it funded follies. To me, nothing kills a good idea faster than money. Great value-added propositions in this world start not from liberty and license but from need and want and hunger. Breakthroughs come from limits. So to me, right now is the best time to start a business. We're back to a more traditional approach -- stay small, make your mistakes, then grow once you learn.

Yet I've heard entrepreneurs say they miss the excitement of those days, the sense of being swept up in something big and new that was going to change the world.

Yeah, well, swept up in an illusion. If there's any time, it's right now and over the next 20 years when we need people to step up to the plate and actually change the world. Of course, everybody thinks that about their historical era. But the fact is that we as a civilization have to radically reduce the throughput of materials and energy -- we're talking about an 80% to 90% reduction -- while improving the quality of life for all people. That's a pretty interesting agenda! That catapults you into a whole other category of design and creativity and imagination. And that is happening already.

Companies are doing it in enzymatic chemistry and biomedics and biomimicry and fuel cells. The train is at the station, people are getting their tickets punched, and it's going to leave pretty soon. I call it the next industrial revolution. The re-imagination of all commercial systems on earth. If you're serious about being a player, about creating something of value, about being current, then it behooves you to check it out.

And you see a big role for small business in this great transformation?

Right. Small business can do a lot, because it can act quickly and decisively. And it's not just so much what it does as the spirit in which it's done. I've always thought small business to be infinitely more open and generous with respect to social and environmental concerns than big business. The myth is Philip Morris giving to the arts. Yeah, well, guess why?

Do you think there's time to make the changes you advocate before it's too late?

Well, it's a very valid question; I get it all the time. But it's not a helpful question. What if I said no? What would you do? The fact is nobody knows how much time there is. So, therefore, what are you going to do? That's the question. What are you going to do? For me, we have just enough time to do what we need to do well. And we always do. Always.
 

April 30, 2002 | Fortune Small Businss | David Whitford