Make Learning Things Faster
As I was hiking, behind Carine, on a trail toward Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver, I reflected deeply on, not only my Goals for my 42th, but also a decade-long accomplishments in my 20s and 30s.
Then I decided it is perhaps time to plan for a decade rather than a year. People often overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, but underestimate what can happen in a decade. It is true. In 2011, I had overestimated what Top Hat could become in a year, two or even three years, but I have never estimated how far I could personally grow and that I could build a new business with my love partner. I would have given it an almost zero possibility.
Carine was ahead of me, listening to a book on “Positive Intelligence” by a Persian writer, Shirzad Chimine. During this week, I didn’t want to engage my brain too much in planning the future or intellectual thinking. We came here to take a break after more than 2 years of tough and constant work, with little or no interruptions and no vacation for the last 16 months. I wanted to enjoy the moment and do Vipassana mental meditation as much as possible when I was not talking or engaged in any activity.
Yet, reflecting on the past is one of my favourite hobbies. It clears us a lot of things and helps me see reality better. So I decided to do just that during the hike under the refreshing trees.
I don’t think I ever had any meaningful or credible long-term planning in my first and second decade of living. The first decade is obviously too soon for anyone’s grey cells to comprehend ageing and time. The second decade was mostly to acquire the most basic information and knowledge about the world daily, get good grades in school week after week and go to the next grade; It was only when I got closer to Konkoor, the standardized national college admission exam, that I knew I had to plan for a goal to achieve later in the future. I set a weekly goal for 5 months from Noruz 1376 till mid Mordad the same year Persian calendar (March 1997-July 1997). And that was the beginning of my efforts to set a “long-term” goal for my success.
When I hit my 20s, I wrote my infamous journal entry in which I declared the 3rd decade as a marathon competition alongside all who were the same age as I was. I told myself that I entered the new decade with millions of others and had 10 years to do whatever it takes to get ahead of as many as I could and set myself up for a successful life post 30th. In reflection, I did just that.
Moving out of a crowded dorm room in Golshan ( I was co-living with +6 male roommates from 1997 through 2000 who were mostly partying and smoking) to focus on my studies, signing up in English courses, saving $ to pay for flights to Canada and eventually leaving the country to come to one of the best communities in the world, Waterloo in Canada were all major turning points in this era of my life. Even though, at the time, I didn’t clearly see how impactful those decisions or events would be for my happiness or success, I was driven every day during the decade to get ahead of others. Like many other kids growing in developing countries, I was very competitive by nature or had a “high-achiever saboteur”inside me, as described by Shirzad Chimine.
Moving to my 30th, my decade-long achievement has been to 1) learn how to build and lead a team and 2) become financially secured such that I can put my energy on thinking and planning for a long term success with a much bigger impact than a short term financial earning to survive. When I started Top Hat at the age of 30, I became interested in “making learning faster”, leading to the longer goal of “contributing to better health for aged people through technology.” One evening in Fall 2012, I sat down with Mike in a sushi restaurant located in Eaton centre and spoke about my vision of building an “iTunes for education” that makes learning anything so easy. At that time, I was very optimistic we could make that happen in 10 years. I was mistaken; Not because I had underestimated how hard it is logistically to do it, but because I was a non-CEO founder sharing my vision with a CEO founder whose heart from the beginnig was in fintech sector and his long vision was to make a lot of money.
To make a long-term vision a reality, I have to constantly keep an eye on the final destination now that I am in the right position. Perhaps, I have to paint a picture and post it on my wall. Great visionary entrepreneurs have realized a 10 to 20 or even a longer-term dream through planning, staying committed and working hard. The recent launch of Virginia Galactic and Blue Origin’s human-carrying passengers that took the founders, Richard Bronson and Jeff Bezos and their crew to the space was a testimony to this: They both had a dream of space expedition since more than 30 years ago.
Speaking of dreams and space, that is one of Carine and my dreams to see the blue earth from a distance. And, longer-term, I like to see humans travelling much faster not only on earth but also into space. I also appreciate Richard Brandon’s deep-ocean explorations. This is a beautiful world around us worth exploring to learn more about who we truly are.
Now in my 40s, my personal long-term goal in business remains the same as my 30s: Accelerating the rate by which an individual learns something new or gathers information necessary to create an effective solution to a complex problem. I am most passionate about applying it in human health, but advancement in any domain is tied to improved human learning.
For example, it took scientists and labs more than a year to come up with a somewhat effective vaccine to combat COVID-19. Why this long? Mostly because new antibodies or engineered drugs’ behaviour was unpredictable and needed verification, tests, and experimentation. We have been able to predict the trajectory of a spaceship and land it accurately and safely on a target spot on the moon or back on earth through understanding all the governing forces, so what could make it impossible for us to do the same in micro worlds of drug delivery, genetics and human cells? All it takes is a comprehensive understanding of all chemical interactions playing a role. But of course, micro forces are a complex unsolved puzzle compared to the well-studied macro forces (gravity for the most part). Even though many individual genetics and doctors know a piece of this puzzle through their research, putting together all those tiny pieces means fast and effective communication between all parties and individuals. But there are millions of them scattered around the world, many speaking a different language. An individual or a small group of individuals in a factory or lab can’t quickly gather and comprehend all that information because translating, reading and trusting all those knowledge that comes from trustworthy and non-trustworthy resources simply take years, if not decades. Many are reinventing the wheel from scratch,
Kritik could be a unique platform to solve this problem. “A powerful assessment and content creation engine through collaboration and critique”. It seems to have the essential elements: Content that helps teach or transfer knowledge, Collaboration, which helps accelerate the creation of the content, assessment and critique that accelerates filtering misinformation and data and automation (or I call it engine) that is the technology behind it all. I have a semi-clear path on how to incrementally and sustainably build this technology out over a decade or so. But I do need a few other thought partners, starting with a PM who believes in this vision, to help experiment and iterate.
