Since many people have been asking me what the outcome was with the Thiel Fellowship I want to state publicly that I wasn’t accepted to be part of the program. My application was disqualified in the first round because I was 3 months too old. They told me I had one of the strongest showings of support and was one of a few people (less than 7 I hear) who had just turned 20 that they really wanted to accept but weren’t able to because they decided to be strict with the age deadline.

For what it’s worth, I knew the age deadline would be an issue, but I spoke with many people associated with the program and they told me they thought the age deadline would be flexible. They said 20 under 20 might as well be 20 and under. That turned out not to be the case. Still, I believe strongly in what the Thiel Foundation is trying to accomplish with the 20 under 20 program and wish all the fellows the best of luck. You will hear who the winners are in a few weeks.

When I learned I wouldn’t be a part of the program, I was disappointed given I had high hopes. Having said that, some good still came out of the process. I was very humbled to see the outpouring of support I received when announcing my plans to apply. I really felt the height of the expectations people have for me. A small part of me found the expectations daunting, but mostly I was excited for the chance to live up to them and surpass them.

I want to say again that I really appreciate all the people who believed I would get the Fellowship. I had hoped the 20 under 20 program would play a role in accelerating my development but in the larger scheme of things, it’s just a carpool lane I won’t have access to for a few miles.

Ultimately what has more significance is succeeding with the company that I’m putting my heart and soul into. After getting over a number of initial speed bumps, we’ve really started to find a groove the past month. We will be releasing some really exciting results from our first iteration of the Startup Genome in the next few weeks. I continue to be happy with my decision to take a leave of absence from Stanford to follow the path that spoke the strongest.

I realized I never published this essay that I wrote last March (2010) for the What’s Next Project: 25 Big Ideas from 25 people under 25, organized by Crystal Yan and Jason Shen. The project was inspired by Seth Godin’s What Matters Now. The idea was to gather perspectives from 25 young people about the emerging trends they see changing the world over the next decade. I picked picked Engagement. My friend and prolific blogger Nathaniel Whittemore recently arrived at the same conclusion, so you know it’s for real

I have news for you: The world’s biggest problem is probably not on your radar. It’s not disease, poverty or climate change.

The world’s biggest problem is that not enough people are working on the world’s biggest problems.

Human drive and ingenuity is the lever that moves the world, but the complexity of the challenges we face has grown, and we need a longer lever.

But increasing the number of people working on solving the world’s most important problems is no easy task. Even the most developed societies are pervaded by apathy and escapism.

I think escapism is our unconscious response to dissatisfaction with life in the status quo, when people are unaware of any options for improvement. This rampant disengagement in workplaces and educational institutions is characterized by two primary symptoms: 1) people doing work they don’t care about just to pay the bills or get a good grade and 2) hating Mondays because they live from weekend to weekend. The culprit is immersion in organizations that haven’t adapted to the 21st century, engendering learned helplessness by putting impressionable people in roles that systematically stamp out inspiration, creativity and passion. The urgency of solving disengagement is such that we cannot wait for incremental change. Rather than trying to improve old systems our best bet is to make something new that makes them obsolete.

The solution to disengagement lies in the cultivation of entrepreneurship and encouragement of entrepreneurial lifestyles. Entrepreneurs can create highly idiosyncratic, meaningful lives, by making an impact on problems that matter to them. Additionally, entrepreneurs aren’t dependent on bureaucratic approval, so new organizations can be erected quickly and thrive in any place where there is a big enough need.

Entrepreneurship in a broad sense is the process of seeing a problem in the world, coming up with an idea about how to solve it and turning that idea into reality. Problems can be solved through technology, organizations or even a piece of art that triggers reflection. What’s important is working on something that matters to you, because then you have motivation, then you want to learn, then you enjoy putting in the hours so that you can become all you can be, to contribute all that you can.

To solve the complex problems of our era we need more people to embark on this life path. In our highly interconnected world the impact of an influx of engaged individuals will create exponential not linear change, because projects can feed off each other creating network effects that accelerate the exploration of uncharted territory and the solutions that exist there.

Awareness of this life path is the first step. And culture is shifting to meet this need, with the future already here on the fringes. I know an extraordinarily high number of people in technology and social entrepreneurship sectors working on something amazing, yet amongst these people there is no feeling of isolation or self-congratulation; trying to change the world is just the norm. And that energy is contagious.

As a growing number of individuals who take the initiative to design lives suited to their strengths and interests are highlighted and rewarded, an entrepreneurial culture will be collectively fostered that will cascade across social circles, sweeping up those with latent aspirations and dropping them on the other side of the status quo; ready to begin the first day of their new life when all hours of the day are looked forward to.

An awakening is on the horizon as a critical mass of young people turn off autopilot and decide for themselves what matters to them and how they want to live their lives. It’s not the majority yet, but the momentum on the ground is palpable.

The cultural shift that is happening now is provoking many to at least begin pondering opting out of the status quo to focus their energy on things they love, solve problems they care about and sidestep the drudgery of antiquated institutions. But we need engagement to start snowballing across society now, and to have that happen we must consistently make the dream for this entrepreneurial lifestyle a reality.

Our task is to create systems that capture people’s inspiration and provide the tools and resources to turn their energy into high leverage actions that are directed towards solving important problems.

Humanity has never possessed more power nor faced more complex problems. If we build new organizational structures to accelerate engagement, we can tip the scales in our favor. Major problems will be eradicated, individual fulfillment will be found and the abundance of the information age will ripple throughout the world.

A new societal golden age is within our grasps. Let’s not miss this opportunity.

(For more on my decision to apply for the Thiel Fellowship see: Why I’m Stopping Out Of Stanford and Applying For The Thiel 20 Under 20 Fellowship)

How do you want to change the world?

I believe the world’s fundamental driver of progress is technological innovation. But it’s not enough for technologies to be invented they must be scaled and integrated into the fabric of society. The best vehicle to support the spread of innovation throughout society is the formation of new companies. This makes entrepreneurship increasingly the critical lever that moves the world the forward. I intend to change the world by creating a lever behind the lever that increases the success rate of startups. I believe this could dramatically accelerate the pace of innovation and catapult the world to a new level of evolutionary development.

In my previous essay I talked about the power of patterns to bring clarity to domains that previously appeared to be chaotic, unknowably complex, and determined by luck and intuition. Entrepreneurship is one of those chaotic domains ripe to be transformed. The initial patterns describing its essence are just starting to be discovered which effectively form the foundation for entrepreneurship to be considered a management science.

I believe effective advancement and propagation of the science behind entrepreneurship will trigger a revolution that will be come to known as the entrepreneurial enlightenment.

After years of exploration and launching projects I finally arrived at the insight that increasing the success rate of startups was the place where I could most immediately have the greatest impact on the world. The journey started when I became frustrated with the lack of relevance of what I was learning at my private high school. The classes were challenging, but I realized they would have little impact on my ability to make an impact. I wanted to make my education relevant for the 21st century so I created a technology club that ended up going on field trips to exciting startups and research centers around the Bay Area. The most transformative part of this experience was actually having conversations with people who were doing real innovation. I shared my vision for education reform with one of these innovators, Saul Griffith, a brilliant engineer who was a founder Squid Labs, and he told me something I will never forget, “Always look for the bigger problem to solve”. In the years that followed my projects evolved quickly because each time I started executing, I kept his words of wisdom in mind, and when my knowledge and networked expanded, I realized I could tackle something bigger. My journey started with education reform, but from there I was led to entrepreneurial education, and finally to realization that I needed to solve problems with entrepreneurship itself.

I believe entrepreneurship today is incredibly inefficient. Entrepreneurs learn the trade primarily through apprenticeship and trial and error. Decisions are based on gut instincts and smart people generally apply good advice to inappropriate situations. The success stories are characterized by large markets dragging startups to scale through sheer intensity of demand. But it’s a sausage making process requiring heroic effort, and consequently the failure rate of startups hovers around 90%, due more to self-destruction than anything else.

I believe developing entrepreneurship as a management science holds out hope for a better way. It let’s us build tools for entrepreneurs to navigate the chaos of reality and organize the scattered insights from battle scarred entrepreneurs into a coherent model. I have no doubt that the right tools will vastly increase entrepreneurs’ ability to build successful companies. After all, early humans differentiated themselves from other species not by their superior intelligence but by their ability to build tools.

In the beginning of 2010, I started a pilot program for entrepreneurs who were alumni of seed accelerators like YCombinator, Tech Stars and Seedcamp, to gather more data about how I might increase the success rate of startups.

A book called 4 Steps To The Epiphany kept coming up and when I read it I realized the author, Steve Blank, had the beginnings of the solution I was looking for. The book’s most important contribution was a methodology called Customer Development. It recognized that most of a startup’s beliefs on day one were simply hypotheses, and outlined a rigorous way to test these hypotheses, effectively applying the scientific method to business.

I got in touch with Steve in April and developed a close relationship with him over the next few months. He agreed to formalize our work together as an independent study at Stanford in the fall. In our first meeting Steve outlined an abstract challenge for the quarter. The difficulty level was high, but I’d already solved a few critical pieces of the problem during the summer. Within a few days I’d figured out the solution. I showed it to Steve a few weeks later and he couldn’t stop chuckling. “That’s it,” he laughed, “your project is complete.” A friend later recounted Steve saying, “Max blew my F*!cking mind.”

I’d made a few key discoveries. I figured out how to resolve conflicting startup advice, by classifying startups into different types. And I treated the startup as an organism that evolved through stages of development. Viewing the startup through this perspective allowed me to reorganize Steve’s insights into a system that was far more extensible, enabling the integration of complimentary methodology. I was then able to integrate these insights into a coherent model that can help a founder figure out what to do and when at a very granular level.

I believe the groundwork is now in place for the management science to grow into something actionable for entrepreneurs very quickly. The most exciting implications of this body of knowledge are its ability to be codified into software, and its potential to be disruptive to the world of venture capital, because it affords the opportunity to transition from picking the winners to making them. I intend to build the organization needed to make this a reality.

(For more on my decision to apply for the Thiel Fellowship see: Why I’m Stopping Out Of Stanford and Applying For The Thiel 20 Under 20 Fellowship)

Tell us one thing about the world that you strongly believe is true, but that most people think is not true.

I believe underneath every art is an undiscovered science. And beneath that assertion I believe there is a more fundamental truth that the universe is an evolving set of patterns.

Most people see a chaotic reality of luck and fortune, filled with unknowable complexity and mystery. They move around the world unaware of what pushes and pulls them, or why they do things.

Furthermore, many people relish the uncertainty and think reality is too messy to possibly have any pattern or order to it. They take pleasure in people being unable to describe what they do, believing they are above any pattern or classification. As if to be described was to be devalued, crippling their identity, which stood tall on the grounds they were one of a kind, like a snowflake. They describe their understanding of reality as an intuitive knowing. But ironically intuition is yet another pattern unaware of the process of its own creation.

In today’s interconnected world where unmet challenges pose increasing global risks, there is danger in ignoring that intuitive competence is based on a pattern. By denying this truth, we hinder discovery and delay the progress that would result from dissemination. Denial causes stasis around current levels of performance because it is difficult to improve something you can’t define. But it can be even more damaging to the next generation because the honest path towards skill acquisition is concealed. For example, athletes frequently misattribute their triumph to their belief in god or a lucky charm, when their emphasis should be on their ability to maintain focus, develop supremely high self-confidence, and prepare through incredible work ethic. While it’s true that superstition can be an effective placebo, there is little room for progression unless the true source of empowerment is discovered, acknowledged, and honed. When we understand the pattern behind how self-confidence works we can learn how to increase its intensity, and control its activation with more precision than by activating it indirectly through something else. Even worse, until we figure out the pattern, it actually perpetuates superstitions regarding the causes of competence, because many assume that the beliefs and desires of the people at the top of a meritocratic pyramid must be right. So myths and superstitions get propagated, while the true causes of success like focus and hard work get devalued, because the winners couldn’t consciously articulate their importance.

In order to progress, we must escape this cycle by discovering why things really work. Once a pattern can be consciously articulated, it can leave the mind of a few and enter the minds of many, where it can be discussed, tested, and analyzed with much greater scrutiny. The pattern not only can replicate and evolve but it can be combined with other patterns. These patterns create interdependencies and feedback loops, and as they continue to intermingle systems begin to develop. Where others see indiscernible chaos and mystery, the pattern seeker discovers order and clarity, and can support the evolution of the pattern by communicating it in a language others can understand.

As a teenager I let my curiosity carry me to a diverse array of subjects such as cosmology, psychology and business. As I read more I noticed that concepts in one field could frequently be applied through analogy to understand another. Furthermore, I noticed myself often applying the same set of patterns to understand new phenomenon. I began to see the complexity of reality as the interaction of a comparatively small set of patterns. Intuitively I was building up a library of patterns that described something fundamental about how the world works. From a macro perspective some frequently repeating patterns were centralization vs. decentralization, exponential vs. linear progress, power laws, evolutionary vs. developmental processes, system incentives and partial perspectives that grew in completeness. At a more micro-human scale, some of the repeating patterns were us vs. them, emotional vs. logical decision-making, habits and limited will power.

These patterns stacked on one another in my head, creating a model of reality. Every subsequent interaction presented itself as an opportunity to parse the world through this model. When I couldn’t explain something and my model broke, it was an opportunity for growth. This systematic testing of assumptions and the iterative improvement of my model was itself a pattern used throughout the universe. Self-similarity was everywhere.

If I had to pick one pattern as the mother of discovery, it would be the act of asking questions. I believe that most people have roughly the same mental capacity, but the primary reason some people acquire more wisdom than others is that they ask more questions. I believe that if we graphed the number of questions people asked per day over their lifetime the differential in our abilities would be illuminated. Competence is explained by the pattern of repetition. Wisdom is the emergent property of a consistently inquisitive person.

When humans acquired language the evolutionary baton was passed to us. When that happened evolutionary progress became dependent on humanity’s ability to discover, replicate and disseminate the patterns that lead to progress. I believe the effect of our continual pattern discovery and dissemination is such that the aggregate impact will eventually throw us over a threshold that signals the world’s next stage of development.

Stanford was my dream school. It had been marked with a big red X for years on my roadmap of life. The first time I applied I got rejected. I wanted it bad enough that I applied again a year later and got in. But by the time I arrived on the farm this fall the honeymoon was over. Stanford and I were no longer right for each other and after a quarter we agreed it was best to part ways. I don’t feel deceived for wanting Stanford for so long. It was a worthy focus of my desires at the time. And I don’t feel cheated for having to leave so quickly. I’m glad Stanford finally accepted me, that we got the chance to know each other, and that I found the courage to separate before we became too settled.

What we need on our journey to get where we want to go is constantly changing as we learn and grow. We can’t become too attached to our dreams. Dreams are the figures dancing on the horizon at the edge of what we can see. But as we move through the valleys and over the mountains and hilltops in pursuit of our dreams, our perspective inevitably changes. When we see the horizon from a new vantage point we can rechart our journey based on our new view of the world or we can cling to the dreams of yesteryear.

A month into Stanford I could tell my current arrangement wasn’t working. I talked it through with my mentors, friends and family, and the administration at Stanford and it became clear I had to make a choice: Enjoy college life or pursue my passion and try to change the world. Framed that way I barely had to blink. For the last 4 years when faced with similar decisions I’d made the choice to forgo present hedonism in pursuit of my larger purpose. Now was no time let up.

Around the same time I made the decision to leave Stanford, Peter Thiel announced his 20 under 20 fellowship, and my inbox was full of friends telling me that when they heard the announcement I was the first person they thought of and that the opportunity was perfect for me. From what I’ve learned so far, I couldn’t agree more. I’m vision aligned with Thiel. I believe the world’s pace of change is accelerating, and the margin for whether we have the best century in human history or the worst is incredibly thin. The unimaginably positive scenario is largely dependent on an accelerating pace of globalization and innovation, so I’ve aimed my efforts at what I believe is one of the biggest leverage points to the tip the scales in our favor.

I believe as the pace of change speeds up, large corporations will topple faster and faster and the economy will increasingly be dominated by startups doing disruptive innovation. My mission to empower entrepreneurs by uncovering the science of entrepreneurship in order to build an integrated solution stack that entrepreneurs can use to dramatically increase the success of their ventures. I’ve been collaborating closely with Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder, Janice Fraser and other entrepreneurial thought leaders and I believe we have the beginnings of a solution. I recently co-founded a new company called Black Box to harness this opportunity, and you’ll be hearing more about us soon.

Furthermore, the larger mission of the Thiel Fellowship resonates very strongly with me. It is a huge societal problem that many of the country’s brightest people are funneled into situations that prevent them from taking risky, but potentially world changing bets. I believe the education system as a whole is broken beyond repair, and starting anew via creative destruction is our only hope for system-wide improvement. Since it seems the interests of the education systems are too entrenched for that to happen, the only alternative are efforts like the Thiel Fellowship gaining major support and at least moving the highest potential young people into a new environment where their potential can be nurtured. I’ve been interested in changing the education system for awhile. A little over a year ago I came to the realization that the world’s biggest problem isn’t poverty or climate change, it’s that humanity just doesn’t have enough people working on the world’s biggest problems. I think efforts like 20 Under 20 are a big step in the right direction. If I didn’t believe what I’m working on could have a bigger, more immediate impact, I would still be trying to reinvent education for the 21st century.

The opportunities winning the Thiel Fellowship would create are equally exciting. The most valuable element for me would certainly be the network of people I would be connected with. Making an impact isn’t as much about the resources you possess as it is the people you surround yourself with. Considering my current passion is the science of entrepreneurship, and that Founders Fund and The Paypal Mafia are made up of some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, it’s hard to think of a better community to become a part of. While I believe I could get in touch with these people on my own, formalization is a tremendous accelerant. I also would find the grant highly valuable. While I’m confident I can figure out a way to make ends meet financially, I come from a middle class family and the time and energy it could take to satisfy my financial needs could become a substantial burden that takes my focus away from creating a successful startup. So the money too, would be a significant accelerant.

I particularly like that the two “ringleaders” of the Paypal Mafia, Peter and Reid, both describe themselves as philosophers and entrepreneurs.  For me, philosophy is about trying to describe the future we should build, and entrepreneurship is how that future gets built. Reid has said he planned on becoming an academic but realized academics get little attention and that he could have a much greater impact as an entrepreneur. I arrived at a similar conclusion at 18. I had chosen to immerse myself in the Accelerating Change/Singularity Community a few years earlier, and after a year or two of reading, attending events and conferences, and working I felt I had a good sense of where the future was probably headed. I turned my attention to figuring out how I personally would make an impact and entrepreneurship became the clear answer.

The fascinating thing about the evolution of my interests from the Accelerating Change community to the startup community is that there are very few people who are actively involved in both worlds. But Peter Thiel who is arguably one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley, is unquestionably the most important benefactor in the accelerating change community, with a substantial number of organizations largely sustained by his Foundation.

These two communities, which have been the most influential on my life, came together full circle on the first Tuesday evening of December at the Place of Fine Arts. The Thiel Foundation held a showcase to expose the luminaries of Silicon Valley to 8 non-profits working on radical projects with the potential to transform humanity. Missions ranged from ending aging, to the safe creation Artificial Intelligence to revolutionary improvement of global governance by experimenting with floating cities at sea.

The last time I was at the Place of Fine Arts was at the Singularity Summit in September of 2007. It was the first Futurist event I ever attended, and the relationships I formed that day changed my life. Here I was again, more than 3 years later. The last time I was here I knew nobody. This time I was cheering on friends Michael Vassar and Patri Friedman on stage, working the room during the reception to talk with all the entrepreneurs in attendance who had become friends, colleagues and advisors, and talking with Peter Thiel about my work in the context of the program he just launched, which could change my life again.

If you are a friend who would support me in winning this fellowship, I’d appreciate it if you left a word of recommendation in the comments. It would mean a lot. Thanks.

(The two essays I wrote for the fellowship can be found here and here)

Earlier this week a post ran on IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com about my story of getting into Stanford after getting rejected the first time. My experience was used to illustrate the larger lesson of how to psychologically prepare yourself to persist in achieving your goals even after being hit with a seemingly fatal setback.

But knowing how to persist until a goal is achieved is just one tool in the toolbox needed to live a rich, meaningful life. Taken in isolation this tactic can actually lead someone astray, because the intensity and focus required will often lead to blinders being put on. It’s important to perserve adaptability by continuously reevaluating goals as new information and experiences are gathered and avoid the grip of path dependency. But that is a story for another day…coming soon.

Here’s an excerpt from the post. If you want to read the full post you can do so here:

“Welcome to the Class of 2014!”

There is no feeling quite like getting admission into your dream college. No purchase, no vacation, no other achievement can rival it.

But it’s even more impressive when you’ve already been rejected…and you turn that rejection into admission the very next year. This is extraordinarily rare.

Today, a detailed case study about how a young man named Max Marmer turned rejection into admission — and how you can use these techniques yourself.

You’ll learn:

• How Max got into Stanford after being rejected the year before…and how a blog post helped (including the actual note from the admissions officer)
• How your automatic ego-protecting defenses prevent you from trying to overcome failure…and how to shortcut them
• How to apply the Craigslist Penis Effect to be more remarkable than your competition

Come along as I show you how most people are so unaccustomed to failure that they’ll do almost anything to avoid it — and how, by understanding this, you can leapfrog virtually everyone on the way to your goals.

(http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/stanford-admission-after-rejection-hustle)

As you may have noticed, my blog hasn’t been very active the past 6 months.This is not because I don’t have a lot to write about. Quite the contrary. My mind, journal and drafts folder are full of ideas I’d like to turn into posts someday. Rather, I haven’t been writing because I don’t believe it’s a good investment of my time right now. I believe people oscillate between phases of exploration and focus. The phases have distinctly different rhythms and goals. I described this theory in more detail in a post called the T Model: A framework for learning, work, personal growth and non-linear career progression.

When I was in the exploratory phase I read lots of books, attended lots of events and conferences, met lots of people for coffee, and wrote a lot. I followed my curiosity down any path that seemed worthwhile. After a few years of learning I decided it was time to start executing and making things happen. My goal then became to find a project that I could commit to for at least four to five years. I wanted it to be aligned with my vision about where the world should go and be the biggest problem I felt I had a reasonable chance of solving. This lead to a lot of experimentation. Some projects lasted just a few weeks, others took almost a year. A little over a year ago I zeroed in on the problem side of the equation. 5 months ago I discovered the beginnings of the solution I was looking for.

The gears shifted, my energy realigned, and the blog went silent.

The general musings are still on hold for the foreseeable future, but over the next days and weeks I will be sharing a number of repostings and updates on my life and work.

A post for a blog friends of mine have started to try to describe and define a new class of ventures that are emerging. emergenttransformation.com

Q: How do you contrast these Emergent Ventures from Social Entrepreneurship? Are they a subset? A superset? A synonym?

A: First let’s define Social Entrepreneurship…

I consider Social Entrepreneurship to include any venture that creates a medium to high amount of social capital, where its primary objective is to maximize social capital and the fulfillment of its mission, rather than maximizing profit. That definition excludes businesses like semiconductor manufacturers, ad networks and coffee shops. But so many businesses are included in that definition that the term Social Entrepreneurship doesn’t have enough differentiation to be a really useful label.

The ventures we’re talking about on this blog do create a medium to high amount of social capital, but they have a few more defining features. Though this does mean that these ventures are a subset of Social Entrepreneurship.

Defining Characteristics of Emergent Ventures:

1) They have information technology component at their core, and are connected to the Internet. This is what allows these businesses to easily benefit from complimentary products and services, rapidly scale, and quickly integrate into the fabric of society.

2) Social Entrepreneurship ventures are often about solving survival needs (Food, Water, Shelter).

Emergent Ventures solve enrichment needs (Knowledge, Community, Collaboration).

3) A portion of the value these ventures create and capture is economic and they make enough money to self-sustain, and often create a significant profit.

4) The ventures we’re talking about on this blog for the most part create a low to medium amount of economic capital. Terms 1 through 3 leave the door open open for companies like Google and Facebook, which create both a high amount of economic capital and social capital, until you recognize that these business maximize for economic returns and you can really maximize one variable at a time. I do think it makes sense to include companies like Google and Facebook in the discussion we’re having since they create enough social capital to benefit from bleeding edge discussionabout how to harness it, but they don’t need help attracting more resources and attention, and that’s one of the main objectives of the emergent transformation blog. (Other ventures to include in this category: Meetup, Quora, Asana, Halycon Molecular)

Examples of companies that would be emergent ventures:

Kiva

The Extraordinaries

Kickstarter

Sandbox Network

The Hub

Sparkseed

Assetmap

Supercool School

Trust Art

Ground Crew

Jumo

The Unreasonable Institute

Open Action

Enzi

Udemy

Unclasses

Let me know what you think and if you would add or subtract any companies on these lists.

There is a new class of ventures emerging. They’re not focused on creating the next profitable widget. Their core purpose is about empowering people with tools, knowledge, social connections to live a better life and fulfill their dreams.

The currency of their value creation is broader than just along the economic spectrum. They are about unleashing the abundant resource of human potential and social capital.

This is a transformative departure from most organizations whose fundamental currency is economic capital. Given this, there’s bound to new ways of organizing, sharing resources, knowledge, tools and people. Social capital is fundamentally positive sum, and therefore potentially abundant, as it grows in value the more it’s used. Whereas organizations based on economic capital predominantly engage in pure quid pro quo, zero-sum exchanges of value.

I’m not sure what all the implications of this are, but I think we should try very hard to figure it out.

Here are some thoughts on why there are probably new organizational possibilities:

I think there’s a lot of potential to take many of these type of projects and create an organization similar to YCombinator but for projects centered around “unleashing human capital”.

This consolidation and focus around a single brand could create a rising tide that lifts all of our work by focusing energy around what these new class of companies need to be successful which could include things like more effective PR, fundraising, and most importantly, collaboration. I think by bringing projects and people together in this fashion there’s an opportunity to rethink some fundamental assumptions about work, business and value creation. Experimenting with some loosely organized uniting brand allows us to begin how to build these structures in way that could accelerate the trajectory of all the projects it touches.

This is a project my friends and I will be working on over the next year or two. If this is something that interests you, let me know.