067: Why IoT Failed (And What's Finally Working) | Alistair Fulton on Microsoft Azure IoT, Semtech LoRa & Building IoT Ecosystems

Why IoT Failed (And What's Finally Working) - Alistair Fulton

After 25 years in IoT, Alistair Fulton has watched the industry make nearly every mistake possible—and he's not holding back about what went wrong.

From incubating Microsoft's Azure IoT platform to growing Semtech's IoT division to $300M in revenue, Alistair witnessed the gap between IoT's trillion-dollar promises and harsh reality. This isn't another tech hype conversation—it's a brutally honest autopsy of IoT's failures and a rare look at what's actually working now.

What You'll Discover:

• How inflated market forecasts ($7T → $1.7T overnight) poisoned the entire industry
• The LPWAN wars and why "one technology to rule them all" was always a fantasy
• Why telcos completely failed at IoT despite owning all the connectivity
• How successful IoT companies today avoid using the word "IoT" entirely
• Regional reality check: what's working in US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East
• Why AI is about to repeat IoT's worst mistakes
• The counterintuitive winning strategy: work within existing industries, not against them

Alistair's journey spans the entire ecosystem—from building $20M custom solutions to creating platforms at Microsoft, Hitachi, Semtech, and Blues. His frank assessment reveals why brilliant technology repeatedly crashed into business reality, and more importantly, what's finally breaking through.

Key Insights:

• Market hype vs. adoption reality
• Technology wars that nobody won
• Platform strategy failures and successes
• Global market dynamics by region
• Climate tech applications that actually work
• AI making IoT's exact same mistakes

This conversation cuts through decades of buzzwords to reveal what actually drives technology adoption. Whether you're building IoT solutions, investing in emerging tech, or trying to understand how industries really change, Alistair's hard-won wisdom is essential.

Episode Timeline:

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:13 Alistair's Background in IoT

00:42 Career Journey and Key Roles

03:06 Insights on IoT Industry Challenges

06:38 Early IoT Market Missteps

10:44 Collaboration and Ecosystem Building 

11:18 Technological Wars and Lessons Learned 1

8:44 Current State of IoT

20:03 Naive Optimism and Realizations in IoT 

21:10 The Shift from Tech Talk to Business Solutions

22:28 Challenges and Risks in IoT and AI

24:43 The Evolution of IoT and Industry-Specific Solutions

31:52 Global Perspectives: IoT in the US, Europe, and Asia

43:15 The Middle East: A Promising Market for IoT

52:45 Reflections and Future Outlook

Blunt, pragmatic, and refreshingly honest about the gap between tech hype and business reality.

Video podcast available on YouTube