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Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the CTA, has seen tech change over decades. I talked to him about his latest views of politics, tech and economic growth. He was blunt in his responses, and that reminded me of the title of his new book on innovation, dubbed Pivot or Die: How Leaders Thrive When Everything Changes.
I spoke with Shapiro a day before the U.S. presidential election. I asked him about politics and tech in one of my early questions. But he first went on to tell me about CES 2025, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas that will happen in early January.
After all, that’s job one for Shapiro, who, as CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), has to make sure the massive trade show for technologists goes off without a hitch.
Pivot or Die is Gary Shapiro’s new book.
We eventually circled back and talked about some political issues. He was particularly concerned about the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s “excessive” antitrust enforcement against the tech giants under the leadership of Democratic appointee Lina Khan.
We also talked about the turbulent tech economy and how its been affected by the shadow of two major wars in the world. And we addressed the impact of AI on the tech industry. That led us to a discussion of the role of government in the tech industry, when it comes to both support and oversight. And I asked him about the chance we have for balanced growth — where revenues grow, AI gets accepted, and jobs grow too.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
VentureBeat: It’s good to see you getting another book out.
Gary Shapiro is the face of CES.
Gary Shapiro: It’s still relevant. We just had a meeting today, the day before the election and 60 days before CES. We talked about the pivots we had made previously in the last few years as an organization. Given the uncertainty of what’s going to happen tomorrow, given the economy and everything else, the only thing that’s certain–well, something will happen.
VentureBeat: This is going to run after the election, but what are some of your thoughts that link what you have in the book to your views of politics and tech?
Shapiro: The CES is an amazing, powerful tech event. I was looking back at what you had written last year about it, before and after. A lot of people go with a very full agenda, but we always say you have to have time for serendipity and discovery. We have a new look, a new feel. We focused the campaign on “Dive in.” We’re inviting attendees to do three things: connect, solve, and discover.
“Connect,” in the technology world–we want people to get together, through B2B and B2C. The statistic we’ve used before is that the average attendee has about 29 meetings during the show. It’s an important business event. You get that face to face. About 75% of attendees say th …