Build a Company for the Next 100 Years

Most industries as we know them today will be unrecognizable to us in the next 10 years.

In every industry, there are two kinds of companies: companies that create arbitrary value or companies that create real value for the world. Either what you’re building today will advance society, or it doesn’t.

The decentralizing power of the Internet is leaving no industry unturned — we’re seeing disruption across healthcare, education, entertainment, government, banking, food production, and more. The opportunity we have as entrepreneurs and innovators is to leverage the Internet to replace arbitrary value with real value.

Centralized institutions acquire and retain their power by making what they offer inaccessible to most. This drives up costs and makes participation highly exclusive.

Decentralized institutions create value by making their offering accessible to all. This drives down costs and makes participation highly inclusive. Once that value is accessible to everyone then that centralized institution is displaced and loses its power.

The formula for creating real value in an industry is simple: leverage decentralization to offer products and services that are 10x more affordable + 10x better.

This combination increases demand and tips power in favor of the many, instead of a select few. These networks trump traditional forms of centralization, destroying the inefficient gatekeeper model around arbitrary value.

This is “The Law of the Internet”: Everything that can be decentralized will be decentralized.

It’s already happening with Uber (transportation), Airbnb (hotels), SpaceX (space travel), Tesla (electric cars), Skillshare (education), Bitcoin (finance), Oscar (healthcare), 3D Printing (manufacturing) and will continue to impact every centralized industry we know today.

So, if you’re thinking of joining or starting a company, join one that creates real value. One that will be around for the next 100 years because counter-intuitively, it provides better value for less.

And never the other way around.