But like shrinking investor contributions to Silicon Valley startups, a narrowing budget or smaller stage doesn’t mean less opportunity. Not if you’re smart. Not if you’re good. CES won’t be a bust, but we’ll need to look harder — and frankly hardware companies will need to work harder. To actually make better stuff you have to, you know… make better stuff. And innovation doesn’t always look like a revolution. A lot of the time — most of the time — it’s an evolution.

Think about all of the things we haven’t gotten right yet.

Email, for instance. Email could obviously do a lot more than it does now. That’s what Google showed us. It’s what Sparrow showed us. And is that the best we can do? I doubt it. It’s a powerful communication tool, and I feel like we haven’t even scratched the surface.