The Futurist’s Dilemma
Thinking differently to create new value.
Galileo is often cited as a father of modern science. He spent a large portion of his life under house arrest.
Why? Because he observed heliocentrism, the idea that Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun, rather than blindly believe in the geocentric view of his time that Earth was at the center of the planetary system.
Futuristic, blasphemous stuff back in the 1600s. You probably learned this story as a child, but failed to heed the true value.
Today, we aren’t put under house arrest for positing contrarian theory. And maybe that’s why we take our free thinking for granted.
I recently finished Zero to One, which is written by Peter Thiel, cofounder of two multibillion dollar companies (PayPal and Palantir), early investor in Facebook and SpaceX, and recently someone who seems to transcend his VC role as a truly forward thinker. Zero to One expresses his framework for thinking about the future and describes how companies can create and capture real value.
Thiel starts with a basic question that he asks any interviewee:
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
Galileo’s answer is that the Sun is the center of our planetary system.
Flatland is a brilliant 1884 satire written about the flaws of Victorian culture, in the form of shapes trapped in various dimensions. The narrator is a humble Square living in a “flat land” of two dimensions. Different 2D shapes represent different social classes.
When he is visited by a 3D sphere for the first time, the Square can’t see or comprehend another dimension, because it’s something he had never known. Only when he is actually taken to 3D Spaceland can he begin to understand that dimensions beyond his perception exist.
There are known unknowns—things we know that we don’t know. And there are unknown unknowns—things we don’t know that we don’t know. Within this range, there is endless discovery yet to be achieved.
But building the future takes foresight. It means thinking differently. But by definition, contrarian thinking has mass opposition, at least during the present time in which that thinking is born.
Hence, the futurist’s dilemma is that the more her idea is extreme in today’s context, the less people will agree with her, and her idea becomes exponentially harder to achieve.
Peter Thiel says that “The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.”
As for myself, I’m going to apply this framework while I continue to think about tech, startups, and the future.
