Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Shaddock Of Liquid Instruments On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
When it comes to your career, you have to make time for the big stuff, and not worry if some of the little things fall off your plate along the way. It’s just the way it is, and you have to be OK with it. Cut yourself a break. You’re not going to be able to do everything for everyone all the time. It’s up to us all individually to prioritize the things that are going to matter in five years. And don’t be afraid to try something new. The people who keep trying new things throughout their careers, no matter how senior they get — those are the ones who really go a long way.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Shaddock.
Daniel Shaddock is CEO of Liquid Instruments and professor of physics at The Australian National University. He also served as a Director’s Fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a Fellow at the American Physical Society, where his publications have been cited over 20,000 times. His research focuses on precision measurements using advanced digital signal processing. At Liquid Instruments, Daniel is pioneering the move from a physical, hard-wired approach to test and measurement towards a computer-based system that uses intelligent software.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’ve always enjoyed the aspect of problem solving within science and figuring things out for the first time. My mentality is if you’re going to solve problems, they might as well be useful. I’m attracted to the enduring impact you can have in science, and the immortality of discoveries. Initially, I was fascinated by exploring big topics, such as understanding the universe and gravitational wave detection. Over time, I became more interested in the practical applications of technology and how it can help people in daily life, which is what led to the creation of Liquid Instruments.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
The test and measurement industry goes back to at least the 1930s, when Hewlett-Packard began making oscillators. Over the last few decades, there hasn’t been much innovation in this space, which is surprising given how many high-tech sectors it serves. When I was an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we developed a laser interferometer to measure between spacecraft, a sort of extreme LiDAR. This interferometer was at the heart of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission to map the world’s water reserves from space with unprecedented accuracy. The super-flexible, FPGA-based instrumentation developed for GRACE-FO became the technology that launched Liquid Instruments. As a longtime user of conventional test equipment — bulky, expensive, fixed-function pieces of hardware — it was obvious that there was an opportunity to modernize and disrupt this space by making it more software-centric, while also making it more affordable. This is why we created Moku:Lab, Moku:Go, and Moku:Pro — to bring engineers and scientists versatile, high-performance test instrumentation that’s easy to use. Our software-defined instrumentation can be reconfigured on the fly and allows test engineers to upgrade equipment with over-the-air updates to add more functionality as their needs evolve. Our technology is turning heads — we recently raised a $30 million round of funding to expand what we’re doing into additional industries.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We did have a challenge in coming up with the name “Moku.” We were a bunch of physicists 100% focused on building the technology and bringing a real product to life. We had our first big trade show — a physics conference. We got to the point where we had to print out banners with the name of the product on them. But we still didn’t have a name. There were lots of spreadsheets of potential names and many people making suggestions. Some of us were in California, and others were in Australia. As we were listing names, we thought about the geographical midpoint between us, which is somewhere near the Hawaiian Islands. That led us to think about the question, “If you could only take one piece of test equipment to a deserted island, what would it be?” Of course, the answer was our device. At that point, we downloaded a Hawaiian dictionary and settled on Moku, which is inspired by the Hawaiian word for “island.” What’s really mattered over time is the meaning that we’ve given to the name, rather than the name itself.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
One weird thing about me is even though I’m a professor of physics, I wasn’t interested in science or engineering as a kid. I was much more interested in playing sports and computer games, or going to the beach. In high school, I had a really funny and engaging physics teacher. He lit a spark in me, and it was at this point that I decided to study physics. It’s true that one teacher can make such a huge difference in the lives of many students. There was a whole group of us from my class who all went on to have careers in physics. That’s because our teacher showed us that there are so many cool things to do in that area of science.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption for the sake of disruption isn’t something I would recommend. There are situations where something is perfectly fine as is, and doesn’t need to be changed. This type of disruption could lead to more issues than the original problem someone was trying to solve. At NASA, I saw firsthand that there was a major opportunity to make things better for engineers and scientists by modernizing and democratizing test equipment. At the time, there were huge advances being made in areas like connectivity and cloud services, and user interface design, and it seemed like a no-brainer to apply these concepts to test and measurement. I like to think of test equipment as the technology behind technology. If test equipment is outdated and difficult to use, how can you expect it to help deliver great breakthroughs? Our flexible, software-defined approach is making a positive impact and accelerating engineering progress.
Can you share some of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
When it comes to your career, you have to make time for the big stuff, and not worry if some of the little things fall off your plate along the way. It’s just the way it is, and you have to be OK with it. Cut yourself a break. You’re not going to be able to do everything for everyone all the time. It’s up to us all individually to prioritize the things that are going to matter in five years. And don’t be afraid to try something new. The people who keep trying new things throughout their careers, no matter how senior they get — those are the ones who really go a long way.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Over the past few years, our team has been busy expanding Moku software-defined instrumentation, which is now available on three hardware devices: Moku:Go, Moku:Lab, and Moku:Pro. After initially focusing on the optics and photonics, academic and government research, and education markets, we now have users in aerospace, defense, semiconductor, LiDAR, quantum, and other industries.
Following our recent round of funding, we’ve accelerated our growth plans and look forward to introducing new offerings that connect lab measurements to more cloud services to improve workflows. This will enable more use cases and allow our customers to increase insight and efficiency exponentially, so they can do what they do better and more quickly. We’re excited to see the benefits this will bring to our customers and the work they’re doing.
The interest in our products is exploding. We’re on track to add more new users this year than the previous six years combined. We know this is just the beginning of what we can do. We want to bring Liquid Instruments to more people around the world, and we see a lot of opportunity to do so in the industrial and educational sectors. We’re already doing a lot of work in aerospace and defense, and we will continue to expand our capabilities there. Overall, the next 12 to 18 months will be critical for our growth. We look forward to executing on our ambitious vision for the company.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I’m a technology fan in general and have become particularly interested in how it intersects with and improves people’s lives. I was in graduate school when Steve Jobs came back to Apple and launched the iMac. I would set my alarm at like 3 a.m. in Australia so I could stream Jobs’ keynotes live from California. After this, my daily routine became opening up a bunch of tabs on my browser and checking out the latest Apple rumors. It was an incredibly interesting time, because the things Apple was doing and how the company was accomplishing them felt so next-level. I think that Tesla’s focus on its product has a similar feel of building something transformational in many dimensions simultaneously. Just like with Apple, Tesla has taken its time rising to the top. I believe that if you build a product that your users genuinely love, and keep your company growing the right way, then greatness awaits.
How can our readers follow you online?
We encourage you to stay connected with us! Follow us on LinkedIn, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out our latest company news, events, product updates, and more at liquidinstruments.com.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Shaddock Of Liquid Instruments On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
