Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
A Third Way? In startup land, you’re hearing talk of profitability over growth at all costs. And some postulate there is a new kind of company: a Silicon Valley Small Business. How does it differ from 37Signals? Is a third way of investing in startups possible? In one corner: “It seems straightforward: invest in companies that won’t grow as fast or get as big, but fail less frequently…But is it so easy? There seem to be only two ways that small businesses have ever been funded by investors: bank loans and venture capital…My hypothesis is that there is no third way.” And in this corner: Calm and Indie say otherwise (but with less math).
The Upswing. From the author of Bowling Alone, comes a well-crafted book with an alluring narrative. The Upswing posits that we are in a new Gilded Age and therefore we have much to learn from studying its history. He argues that from the turn of the 20th century, America improved until about 1969 and then stagnated or retreated since. People have moved from being more “We”-oriented to being more “I”-oriented. The solution? A new Progressive movement. He offers no master plan. Rather he says it will take many solutions likely to come bottom up. Is the Abundance Movement an important part? Let’s use tech and government policy to unlock supply of things we want like housing, healthcare and energy.
Fighting Malaria. Malaria is a top 15 global killer mainly in Africa. We removed it from the US. In fact, the effort wasn’t that long ago and was the beginning of the CDC. For the US, we used DDT. Bed nets (as cost effective as they may be) and watching for standing water, only goes so far in malaria control. Instead of widespread application of pesticide or increasing use of expensive hallucinogenic drugs, advancing technology offers us two new options. And no, it doesn’t appear that the frikin’ laser beams idea is ready for scale. The first new solution is the use of vaccines. WHO is touting the rollout of a vaccine to 1mil+ people. A better vaccine is in the pipeline. The second new solution is genetic engineering. Would you release a gene drive to sterilize wild mosquitoes? What are the second-order effects?
Until next week,
Miles
P.S. At Purpose Built, we published our latest blog post on how to manage communication debt in your company.
An alternative lens on Putnam's theory of the rise of "I" vs. "We" in the last 50 years. I have heard posited (and must admit I find appealing) the idea that the rise of I has come in large part due to the increased governmental programs that arose out of the great society. As we as a country rely more and more on government to solve problems, individuals no longer feel a responsibility for others since that has been outsourced to federal and local officials. Hence, individualism flourishes in a world of displaced responsibility. Of course it's hard to prove this; however, if it is indeed the case, progressivity may not yield the desired change.