Avoid The Echo Chamber At All Costs

Not sure if you are watching HBO’s TV Show Silicon Valley (if not — you should; though I found the last season lacking… maybe the comedy has been overtaken by the real-life already; Silicon Valley disruption-style!). If you do — or if you ever spent time here — you will have noticed that there is a pretty real echo chamber going on. And not just here but in every tech hub I have ever been to.

It goes a bit like this: Enthusiastic tech founder-in-the-making hangs out at a bunch of meetups where he interacts with other already-founders and founders-in-the-making plus a plethora of industry insiders and pundits. They talk about tech, problems in search of a solution, solutions in search of a problem and the VC money to fund all of this. However, because they keep talking to each other and then take their insights from these conversations into the next, you end up with an exponentially growing pool of THE SAME.

Everyones’ views, ideas, and insights get bounced off of the walls of this echo chamber until they all say and believe the same thing.

It is dangerous and sadly all too common.

Do yourself a favor: Get out there, explore the world, talk to people who are distinctly different from you, listen to their ideas, observe their struggles and ask lots of open-ended questions. The world is a darn amazing place, and there are so many problems worth solving — and many will make you not only richer but also more satisfied with what you have accomplished than the n-th generation of a swipe-up-dating-app-with-a-twist.

This post is part of the “The Heretic”, Pascal Finette’s insights into leadership in exponential times. For entrepreneurs, corporate irritants and change makers. Raw, unfiltered and opinionated — delivered straight to your inbox. You will like it. → https://theheretic.org