vision building: days are noisy, decades are silent
People who see today clearly end up being great. People who can see the next decade clearly end up being rare.
In 1984, Michael Jordan, a rising basketball star was about to sign with Adidas. Back then, Adidas was the most prestigious basketball shoe brand and had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (best player at the time) as the face of the brand. Jordan wanted Adidas.
But, her mom wanted him to sign with Nike. The reason: Nike wasn't prestigious among top basketball players. But, Deloris Jordan believed MJ was the one who could change it. Also, if Michael was this unseen force of nature she believed he was, signing a revenue share deal with this “average” brand could be a brilliant idea.
You know the result. She went beyond what's known. She could see crystal clear 10 years ahead and was right.
Anyone can spot an opportunity today. Few people can anticipate and have a clear bet of i) what will be a great opportunity in 10 years and ii) be right about the bet. As my friend Bruno would say:
Exercising Futurism
The core reason for this is that we tend to be present-forward thinkers rather than future-back thinkers.
It means we want to see the present clearly and use this understanding to navigate the future. On the other hand, future-back thinkers build vision getting rid of current assumptions, possibilities, and constraints. They rather, build a vivid, detailed world they'd love to live in and work backward.
Especially when we're young, we stop in the first dimension. We feel satisfied once we reach a clear understanding of today's modus operandi. We rarely think “Ok, I understand how it works today. But, then years from now, how will it work? What are my bets?”
I love this video by Sam Altman. He describes it perfectly.
You don't need to watch the 30 seconds. The takeaway is: don't obsess with what your market looks like today. Be obsessed with what it'll be in 10 years.
How do we build a crystal clear vision of what will be a huge market in 10 years if we don't wander about the future?
Multiple calls a day, dozens of people to answer, stuff to read, exercise, etc. I understand some of us can't stop to “think about what the future will look like”.
However, if we want to be entrepreneurs, this is part of our job. Building startups is about making visions of the world that only exist in your head come to the physical world. Envision, then build. Collect feedback, then iterate the vision. Then build based on the iterated version of the vision.
Clarity of the vision will always be the input to what needs to be built.
What if people could connect online? Then you have Facebook.
What if restaurants could centralize all their data, manage storage, and get cheaper credit? Then you have Toast.
What if companies could pay less for healthcare and even so their employees have better health outcomes? Then you have Alinea.
How to nurture it
I am far away from dominating the skill of seeing decades clearly. But, I'd like to share things I'm trying to use. All of these have been helping me.
Get inspired from people who have been navigating the future for a while.
Listen to people who think about the future systematically. This is where the pieces of evidence are. Look for what these people are saying in 2024. High chance that's the world we'll be living in 2034.
Elon Musk on how AI is something he'd work on if he were 22. This is from 2017. (2 min)
Bill Gates on why TV would move to the Internet and how it'd enable targeted ads. So obvious, right? Little detail: This is from 2008. (1 min)
I'm mentioning “cliché” guys, but we can go beyond the mainstream.
I love this guy called Joe Flower. He identifies as a healthcare futurist. There's a video of him from 6 years ago debating on how the American economy wastes 1/3 of its health costs on unnecessary health procedures.
Guess what? The startup I work at is addressing this problem. Harbor Health, our US benchmark, raised $95m last week to address this problem.
Surely there were other systemic health problems back then. However, Mr. Flower could see a decade ahead clearly.
Calm, free mind
A wandering sharp mind is powerful. This is the combination of learning obsessively about a topic and then giving your mind free space to wander.
Sharp comes from learning. Wandering comes from free time. When they're combined and you're aware of the importance of having bets for the next decade, things flow naturally.
Always ask: How could the thing I'm using/living change 10 years from now?
This is about building the habit of exercising forward-thinking. Even for dumb stuff.
I can remember one time I exercised it with a slipper. I thought that in 10 years remote work would be more common than it's today. As people would spend more time at home than at the office, they would need more slippers than social shoes. Therefore, the slipper market could capture part of the social shoe market.
Is it right? I don't know. This is about building the habit.
Another time I did it with career credentials. 10 years from now not attending top universities to work at a seed-funded startup that reaches Series A/B will be more powerful than the typical combination of prestigious college + IB/Consulting.
Why? A proxy for readiness to build a company will be the amount of uncertainty dealt with + similar problems solved rather than prestigious stamps.
Final Thoughts
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Steve Jobs
We forget that the cool things we love using today were uncertain and ‘silent’ ten years ago. But, they were brilliantly executed and moved with so much horsepower that made it through the decade.
The things we'll be using in 10 years are silent and strange today.
What are decades trying to tell us we haven't been able to listen? That's where decade clarity comes from.