Visualizing the Future

Visualizing the Future #16: Stories: Beginning, Middle and End

I  finished the last post by asking for readers' help figuring out how to complete the journey that began here.  Many thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate how thoughtful and considered it has been. Now to the subject at hand.

This post has been the most challenging, inspirational and (I hope) valuable part of the series.  

Putting this together has caused me break the pace of daily dispatches; it was just challenging to synthesize everything but I think it's been worth it; I've had insights that have eluded me until I reached this topic. I'm amazed it took me until the 16th dispatch to realize my that my central theme is that in visualizing the future we keep telling and retelling stories about the Past to understand the Present and imagine the Future.

Stories are the language we understand; they are the organizing principles of our lives and we care about how they end.  It is through stories that we place ourselves within the timeline of history, connect with others, makes sense of life and derive meaning.  Stories are Universal.

Visualizing the Future #15: "What Happens Next?"

I said in the last post that this post would be a continuation of my thoughts on the Singularity.  I've changed my mind for a few reasons:

1. The topic has humbled me. When I signed up to do a series of 23 daily posts called "Visualizing the Future" 11/11/11 , I had no idea what I was getting myself into.    
2. I promised my wife not to stay up all night tonight. ;-)
3. I've been making these up as I go along.  
4. I'm starting to appreciate just how interesting the Future is.  
5. It's become clear to me that by definition, none of us has a clue what will happen in the Future, least of all me.  It's why we talk, wonder, gamble, imagine and dream.  It's what keeps life interesting and magical.

So here's what I'm going to do:

Visualizing the Future #12: Ponzi Schemes or Financial Progress?

Tonight's post involves some sleight of hand.  If you've ever watch a shell game or 3 card monty, you know that being told you're going to be tricked doesn't help at all.  You're still the shill and you always pick the wrong shell.

So I'll explain the trick quickly.  Tonight, I will give you a brief introduction to the topic and hopefully, arouse your curiosity.  The rest of the trick will wait until tomorrow.  Here goes.

Visualizing the Future #11: Rolling the Dice and the Power of Chance

Whether it's a roll of the dice, flip of a coin or an ace on the river, the concept of "Chance" is more central to the "Future" than any other.   In Greek mythology, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon divided the Universe with a roll of the dice.  Religions focus on the role an individual plays in determining his fate; so much so that the word "divine" can either refer to holiness or an ability to predict the future.  In some ways, you could argue that chance, whether referred to in literate as Fate or Luck or in philosopy as Free Will or Determinism, is THE central concern of modern society.  And why not?  What could be more important or as interesting as understanding what will happen next?

I've touched on a breadth of large subjects in this series but none of them has proven to be as large, difficult or interesting as Chance.  For this reason, I've decided that it deserves more than a single post.  How many, I don't quite know -- if you have yet realized, I have only a vague roadmap on this trip and when I reach areas requiring more time than my midnight oil will afford, I might as well just extend them. So strap in for an extended, potentially meandering journey.  I've also figured out that these posts are more fun to write when they stem from personal stories. I hope the same is true for you, the readers .

In 2003, I had recently moved from New York to California and gotten married.  My business partners were back East and after a few months of trying to make a startup work remotely I received a stern talking to from my wife.  I needed a job.  My network in San Francisco was fairly lean and as I began to look around, my sister-in-law mentioned that she had a friend who needed someone to build a website for his project.   She put me in touch with her former colleague, Andrew Pascal who had recently been lured back to Las Vegas to help his uncle launch an ambitious new casino on Las Vegas Boulevard.  His uncle's name was Steve Wynn.

Visualizing the Future #10: Betting on the Future: The Earliest VC's

Where do companies that change the Future come from?  These days the answer almost always begins with the seed of an idea, followed soon by an infusion of Venture Capital.  Silicon Valley legend has it that the VC phenomenon is an American concept,  a mid-20th century phenomenon that paired the founders of companies like Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, and HP with George Doriot and his proteges. As always, it depends how you look at it, but I'll argue that venture capital is much older and much more interesting.  

As an entrepreneur, I've always thought of starting companies in nautical terms.  It starts with an idea.  (For me, I can usually tell it's decent if I'm still thinking about it weeks or months later).  Once the idea becomes an obsession, all the seafaring metaphors begin.  A voyage must be planned, the ship designed, a crew assembled and finally, when the winds are right, launched.  If you're lucky, fortune smiles and years later, you return from distant shores with the hold laden with exotic treasures.  Or you're never heard of again and people assume that the Davy Jones, the sharks or cannibals got you.  But before any of this is conceivable, someone's got to foot the bill.  To invest.

In yesterday's post, I brought up the Golden Age of Holland; an era marked by an explosion of scientific and economic innovation.  At the heart of this innovation was the Dutch East India Company, the world's second multinational corporation (the British East India Corporation was formed 2 years earlier in 1600).  It was also considered the world's first Megacorporation (just in case you were wondering - it's a real term).  The VOC, as it was known, survived for 200 years and paid an 18% annual dividend to shareholders over that period.  In modern terms, that's the equivalent of extrapolating Warren Buffet's performance at Berkshire Hathaway (current market cap is $198B) for another 150 years.  Not bad.