Marc Andreessen of a16z, the Silicon Valley VC has recently published a fantastic post entitled "It's time to build". He looks at how society has failed to see the Covid-19 crisis coming and how we as society are dealing with it.
He claims "part of the problem is clearly foresight, a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is what we didn’t *do* in advance. [...] Our nation and our civilisation were built on production, on building. [...] There is only one way to honour their [our forefathers] legacy and to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren, and that’s to build".
Marc calls society to focus on building and less on rent-seeking of the accomplishments of our forefathers.
The future is not built by societal-osmosis. The future of our societies is the sum of present actions taken by individuals and their teams over time. The success in building the future is the sum of the actions of special individuals. Those are the individuals that have the courage to put Skin in the Game to build the future as described in the last book of Nassim Taleb. This message is globally relevant.
My goal with Pinto Ventures is to find phenomenal entrepreneurs. I work with teams from Tallinn in Estonia, London, Berlin and Hawaii. These individuals and many others like minded, are the ones addressed in Marc's message, they are the "Who" of the "Build".
Mike states that "breakthrough builders are visitors from the future, telling us what's coming. They seem crazy in the present but they are right about the future. Legendary builders, therefore, must stand in the future and pull the present from the current reality to the future of their design". This the "How" proposed by Mike for building the future.
You probably heard about approaches to make your dreams happen, like the technique of sending it as an order to the universe, or the one about writing down your dream of the future 15 times everyday. It turns out that these techniques are more than a myth and can be explained by neuroscience (but I leave that to experts and the upcoming book of Dr. Martina Muttke).
One of my great-grand-uncles was such a dreamer: he was in love with the idea of flying and according to my grandmother, when he was a child he was saved by a cook from jumping out of the window with wings made from duck feathers. But he followed his dream and below is a picture of him in 1909 with his invented and self-built airplane (but that is a story for another post).
But the builders of the future seem to be wired differently: entrepreneurs and futurist leaders have the future they want to create in their head in such away that it becomes an obsession.
Obsession with the future can become a barrier in itself. Tricks such as visualising your future and writing it down every day 15 times as Scott Adam's of Dilbert successfully used can become a barrier to achieve them if you don't embrace the second part of it: the acceptance that taking action means embarking on a trial and error process. You will need to fail, again and again.
To be the best scorer of goals in the world is the ultimate goal of Cristiano Ronaldo. But to score in any soccer match is dependent on many factors out of his control e.g. adversary and team players performance in that match and, most of all a big, big dose of luck. All these factors are beyond his control. What is under his control is his training. Every single day. That is where he can make a difference and where his effort to become the best scorer of the world needs to go.
Equally important is to focus on the "today". Per definition your dream of the future takes place... in the future. But the actions you take to achieve this future are taken in the present. To understand this, think about happiness: we see happiness in others around us, or in an aspired future. But that is what makes it elusive. The more we pursue it this way, the more it will avoid us. Happiness takes place in the present. Right here and now. The same focus on the actions you take in present is important when you aim to build your dream of the future. The future alway starts now.
He claims "part of the problem is clearly foresight, a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is what we didn’t *do* in advance. [...] Our nation and our civilisation were built on production, on building. [...] There is only one way to honour their [our forefathers] legacy and to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren, and that’s to build".
Marc calls society to focus on building and less on rent-seeking of the accomplishments of our forefathers.
The future is not built by societal-osmosis. The future of our societies is the sum of present actions taken by individuals and their teams over time. The success in building the future is the sum of the actions of special individuals. Those are the individuals that have the courage to put Skin in the Game to build the future as described in the last book of Nassim Taleb. This message is globally relevant.
My goal with Pinto Ventures is to find phenomenal entrepreneurs. I work with teams from Tallinn in Estonia, London, Berlin and Hawaii. These individuals and many others like minded, are the ones addressed in Marc's message, they are the "Who" of the "Build".
The "How" of building the future
The next question is how does the future get created? Mike Maples Jr Partner at Floodgate VC gives a taste of it in his recent post "how to build a breakthrough". The "How" that he proposes is the method of Backcasting. It is worth a read: to build the future, we need to start by imagining that future. As a next step we need to back test it for plausible (but not commonly accepted) solutions, or for possible (but not considered plausible) solutions, or for preposterous (seen as crazy by all) solutions that could make that future happen.Mike states that "breakthrough builders are visitors from the future, telling us what's coming. They seem crazy in the present but they are right about the future. Legendary builders, therefore, must stand in the future and pull the present from the current reality to the future of their design". This the "How" proposed by Mike for building the future.
Courage to dream
Elon Musk is today's living example of the ability to dream the future, backtest it and find ways to achieve it. He often does that by pursuing preposterous solutions that everybody thinks too crazy to even consider (e.g. reusable rockets).You probably heard about approaches to make your dreams happen, like the technique of sending it as an order to the universe, or the one about writing down your dream of the future 15 times everyday. It turns out that these techniques are more than a myth and can be explained by neuroscience (but I leave that to experts and the upcoming book of Dr. Martina Muttke).
One of my great-grand-uncles was such a dreamer: he was in love with the idea of flying and according to my grandmother, when he was a child he was saved by a cook from jumping out of the window with wings made from duck feathers. But he followed his dream and below is a picture of him in 1909 with his invented and self-built airplane (but that is a story for another post).
Courage to start
Unfortunately, most of the future plans don't get to see the light of the day because people don't dare to start making them happen. Life is just so much more comfortable when you don't try! Complacency is what makes us prefer a "rent-seeking" approach to life. For most of us this takes place in the form of the security of a monthly pay-check. It is a choice each of us needs to take and for 99% of the people it's the right choice.But the builders of the future seem to be wired differently: entrepreneurs and futurist leaders have the future they want to create in their head in such away that it becomes an obsession.
Obsession with the future can become a barrier in itself. Tricks such as visualising your future and writing it down every day 15 times as Scott Adam's of Dilbert successfully used can become a barrier to achieve them if you don't embrace the second part of it: the acceptance that taking action means embarking on a trial and error process. You will need to fail, again and again.
Focus on doing
Professional athletes teach us some valid lessons on how to deal with the obsession necessary to reach their dreams as well as the mindset to survive the many failures before that are unavoidable before eventually succeeding.To be the best scorer of goals in the world is the ultimate goal of Cristiano Ronaldo. But to score in any soccer match is dependent on many factors out of his control e.g. adversary and team players performance in that match and, most of all a big, big dose of luck. All these factors are beyond his control. What is under his control is his training. Every single day. That is where he can make a difference and where his effort to become the best scorer of the world needs to go.
Equally important is to focus on the "today". Per definition your dream of the future takes place... in the future. But the actions you take to achieve this future are taken in the present. To understand this, think about happiness: we see happiness in others around us, or in an aspired future. But that is what makes it elusive. The more we pursue it this way, the more it will avoid us. Happiness takes place in the present. Right here and now. The same focus on the actions you take in present is important when you aim to build your dream of the future. The future alway starts now.
Conclusion
We need to believe in a great future, that is critical for all of us as society. The good news is that "the future already exists today, it just is not evenly distributed". It exists as a vision in the head of an entrepreneur. Perhaps it exists in your head as dream. The way to get there is by backcasting from the future as opposed to forecasting from the present. Only the ones that are obsessed by their dreams and are able to take action will be able to make the future happen.
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