This page is a salad of the finest fruits of wisdom for entrepreneurs and others. They are not focused on a specific stage of innovation or entrepreneurship. Rather they help you understand the larger context and environment within which your venture operates. Similarly, personal accounts of specific examples or case studies can give you insights without pretending to apply to all ventures or to all entrepreneurs. These are resources to follow over the next weeks or months as your schedule allows. Each offers special insights.
Priceless Lessons from Successful Entrepreneurs
Ray Dalio is author of the #1 book in Amazon’s business and organizational learning category. He distilled his book, Principles, into 30-minute mini-segments on YouTube. The comments below the video attest to the “priceless lessons” that Ray conveys. Here’s the beginning link to Principles of Success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9XGUpQZY38
Jack Ma is a fascinating example of a self-made success. His giant Chinese company, Alibaba is compared to Amazon, and his company has over one billion customers (three times population of U.S.). He has maintained a sense of humor, of proportion, and of humility throughout his rocketing success. Note that he says to be smart, you should study entrepreneurial failures to learn from them! At age 54 he retired to return to teaching and to philanthropy. Here is Evan Carmichael’s high-energy presentation of Jack Ma’s 10 rules of life and success titled “Look at CHALLENGES as OPPORTUNITIES:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrsIhrv0nxQ
Examples of our Fast-Changing World: Where to Focus
There are three avenues to explore to find areas of growth or areas of safety. The first is predicted exponential expansion of information technologies: GRAIN: Genetics/Genomics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology. We know they will change our world, but we don’t know exactly how or when. The second are the huge “megaprojects” launched by stable nations with massive investment and talent, backed by their prestige. Many of these will yield significant benefits to those who can participate, but geopolitical and economic pressures and opportunities will affect them. The third is the path of safety rather than growth and change. In a fast-changing world, safety is found in jobs and industries that are difficult to automate and may provide personalized services to a lot of people. Each of the three approaches are covered below
GRAIN: the Information Technologies
GRAIN: the Information Technologies: Advances in the GRAIN technologies are expected to follow Law of Accelerating Returns because they are fundamentally “information” technologies. Yes, biology and molecular behavior are at their core more like computer science than gardening or building traditional machines or medicines. Each advance builds upon the previous advance much like money growing through compound interest. THE BEST SOURCE of understanding of these technologies is Ray Kurzweil’s don’t-drop-it-on-your-foot book, The Singularity is Near. It will change the way you view the world, especially how to thrive, to innovate, and to invest. You can find lots of talks by Kurzweil, but they fail for two reasons: 1) they never go into enough depth for you to really understand them, and 2) Kurzweil is an engineer — his talks are great for insomniacs ’cause his uninflected voice puts you to sleep.
MEGAPROJECTS: Make time to watch the video below (46 min. – watch in pieces). Megaprojects are like the Works Progress Administration in the U.S. Depression, the Marshall Plan to rehabilitate post-WWII Europe (and similar treatment of Japan), and the U.S, Interstate Highway system. They are projects launched with the full financial, technical, and prestige support of stable nations. Below is a link to a video showing about five megaprojects. Some of the comments about the video complain of its political statements (while applauding the content). Over 4 million views, 35,000 loved it, 6,000 didn’t. My reaction was that the video directors made an effort to show the dramatic nature of each megaproject while cautioning, and sometimes criticizing, regarding the political nature of all of the projects. Here’s the link (46 min) to “The World’s Future Megaprojects, 2018-2040’s”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQ874ZuIno
SAFE jobs will exist, and safe industries that organize those jobs will grow. These are simply the jobs that are not affected by the GRAIN technologies for the foreseeable future. The following video will give you valuable insights into 15 jobs or industries that may be immune for 30 years from GRAIN effects. You may find the video to be patronizing, shallow, and favoring the wealthy (but that’s the orientation of producer ALUX), but it still has nuggets of value to guide your actions, teaching, and investments. The video has been viewed a quarter of a million times in less than 2 months: (22-min: “15 Jobs that will Thrive in the Future (despite A.I.):” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gUrMGnvcfQ
How to Take Action:
- If you are educator, teach your students about THEIR future.
- If you are an entrepreneur, DO IT! Fast-changing times favor the bold actor.
- If you are an investor, identify the businesses and industries of the future. There will be massive growth across the board even though we can never identify the individual companies that will thrive.
- If you are curious, just sit back and watch the world’s changes unfold before your eyes.