Stewardship
1729.com published a post that begins by contrasting the deficiencies arising from "inheriting" versus the ideals of "founding." It underscores the value of "first principles" and provides an accurate diagnosis that lost faith in institutions undermines the post-war order. The piece ends with a worthy call for new ideas required to "found new cities and new countries, rather than simply inherit them."
Along the way, the article also misattributes the qualities it values, overlooks that progress is incremental, conflates flawed with broken, and while it's clear about what it is against, it's vague about what it stands for.
However, the essence of the post is salient: the future is not a gift; we must earn it. There's no disputing that complacency and self-serving behaviors will destroy an inheritance worthy of continuation.
That animating principle fits the urgency of this moment.
Mindset Not Job or Geography
Our challenge is to change the world for the better, and our burden is stewardship. Both are the heart of the human endeavor.
Our objectives need to align with broad societal aims, anchored by a moral core, designed to raise the standard of living for as many people as possible. Realizing the dream depends on leadership and resolve.
The post highlights the spirit and values of founders:
vision to see possibilities that others overlook
determination to overcome resistance to change
resilience to persevere in the face of long odds
It also highlights the shortcomings of inheritors:
unprincipled motivations
self-serving actions that erode trust
a lack of adaptive skills needed to overcome a crisis
But, the article misattributes the virtues it admires to career history (founders) and geography (West Coast). As a result, it misdirects our attention from the source of the qualities and character it values.
Those virtues aren't inherited through the act of founding something. Nor are they ever-present from that point forward. Avoiding the shortcomings of an "inheritor's mindset" is a career-long, if not lifelong, struggle. That trap is set and waiting for each of us.
Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann are both founders. The former is a West Coast innovator, and the latter is an East Coast arbitrageur -- arguably true for all asset-light businesses. Both founders took on the vices of an inheritor's mindset showing no regard to customers, employees, investors, partners, or communities.
Founders get results when they balance competing objectives — urgent needs get the lion's share of attention. But, the magic needed to meet the purpose central to the 1729 post is balancing objectives across time. Working to provide present and future benefits to our contemporaries and those unborn is the act of stewardship:
pushing boundaries of existing capabilities and expectations
serving coinciding interests of society, i.e., individuals, communities, and institutions
embracing constrained, ever-improving, and innovative use of resources
Critically, stewards deploy all of the above to deliver unselfish, positive impact for the moment and the future.
It's All Inheritance
It's shortsighted to overlook that we don't build anything from scratch. Each of us has inherited fortunes in the form of wealth, knowledge, and technology accumulated over centuries, much of which was unimaginable only fifty years ago.
The internet started in the 1960s with funding by the US Department of Defense. Among those responsible for keeping it 'up' during the recent crisis is AT&T, an institution that dates back to the 19th Century.
SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin would not be possible without the institutional inheritance from NASA.
Amazon is a logistical marvel but has stitched together its last-mile delivery capabilities using UPS, Fed-Ex, and even an 18th Century institution, the USPS, and some inspiration and technology from ride-sharing services.
There's no disputing that Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Graham, Page, Theil, Moritz, Greene, Koller, and Ng all made a dent in the world. Of course, they improved upon the world-changing achievements of Einstein, Curie, Newton, Bell, Franklin, Da Vinci, Galileo, and Archimedes.
In the domain of building communities, cities, and countries, Gandhi, Mandella, King, Lincoln, Washington, Paine, and Churchill not only inspired millions to imagine a better world, but they also demonstrated the courage and persistence needed to make it happen.
And Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Austen, Picasso, Monet, Michaelangelo, Mozart, and Beethoven connected us to our essential humanity.
The best way to honor their legacy and their contributions is to pave the road for those who will succeed us. That is our obligation. And a call for ideas to fulfill that obligation is the heart of the article.
Our attempt to climb above the heights of their achievements (and those of countless, nameless others) is singular. No one has ever had to do it.
So our opportunity -- rather, our responsibility -- is to improve what and we've inherited. It's a responsibility that demands our unwavering engagement, attention, and wisdom.
Failures Not Failed
The post also correctly highlights that institutions run by political heirs "caused a crisis of faith in American institutions specifically, and in the postwar order more broadly."
Then it goes on to state that during 2020, public health, safety, and education "failed." Governments, the US military, and media corporations, it says, likewise "failed." But organizational failures are not the same as failed organizations.
By focusing on the widespread failures of legacy institutions, the article obscures one of its most valuable insights. Namely, that the lack of trust in public and private institutions undermines their utility.
With that in mind, it's critical to acknowledge that trust in the tech industry also eroded last year. Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Tesla, Zoom, Microsoft, Quibi, Epic, and many others "failed" during the pandemic.
Technology is an invaluable resource at the cutting edge of societal progress. But, before technology institutions help "found" the societies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, tech needs to rehab itself, too.
Every institution, business, organization, movement, and person experienced failures during 2020. It weakened many, and some will not recover. But the task at hand is not to write their epithets; it's to recharge their potential by restoring trust.
That starts by offering critique instead of criticism — more light than heat.
Next Cities Not New Cities
Humans have been building new cities for thousands of years. Some of them have failed. Failures occur in all of them -- including Songdo, South Korea, a failing $40B 21st Century blank slate, technology-driven "smart city." But, despite their shortcomings, cities are engines of progress.
By creating and sustaining economies of scale and network effects, cities provide dynamic access to employment, goods, specialized services, social, civic, and cultural opportunities. In short, cities produce agglomeration economies by minimizing the cost of moving goods, people, and ideas.
Starting cities from scratch isn't needed (in developed countries). Our opportunity and obligation are to serve better the people who call them home. It's time to use our inheritance to push the boundaries of existing capabilities and expectations for cities — in a word: stewardship.
Success leaves a path, a compass, and tools to get to the next level. With that in mind, Amazon is a compelling metaphor for successful, recent, and transformational stewardship. The company used existing resources and overcame countless undesirable realities.
Suppose we were to "Amazon" a municipality. How might we use disruptive ideas and new technologies to reduce further the cost of moving goods, people, and ideas (the central function of cities) by:
Saving time for people? Since that's the principal value of Amazon.
Serving everyone, not just a few?
Being fully networked to work at a hyper-local and global scale?
Tapping into latent and underused assets — people foremost?
Revitalizing legacy infrastructure and institutions (like USPS)?
Empowering people to make critical life decisions (not just purchasing choices)?
Routinely meeting and exceeding expectations?
Overcoming some of Amazon's flaws to do all of that better than Amazon does its business?
Building the next generation city will seem more like evolution than revolution. It will have little appeal to our 21st Century mindset because there's no instant gratification or certainty of outcome. And it will be messy and tireless work because it must engage and elevate people.
It's the work of founders, inheritors, leaders, managers, builders, technologists, craftspeople, West Coasters, East Coasters, Midwesterners, and their public-spirited counterparts where ever they are.
World-changing ambitions start with purpose, values, and vision. With those aligning forces in place, design, engineering, and implementation follow.
As always, technologists will make the impossible possible.