Dear Rich (White) People
“Did he just write that?!” is what Anderson Cooper is thinking.
I’m not even kidding. I’ve got ideas for days and can make it rain month after month. Thing is this, they’re all crazy and large scale ideas that will never make sense to your risk analyst or your team of lawyers and accountants vetting all your angel money. These ideas are innovative and there are a few and far between that understand that. These are the same people that when asked to think outside the box, they’re already architecting 17 ways to repurpose the box and make something useful out of it.
Do you know how Sir Richard Branson started Virgin Airlines? His ability to adapt to his environment, similar characteristics to that of a chameleon. His flight to the Virgin Islands was cancelled and he needed to get there. He was aware of a need; an entire plane whose flight was cancelled and all still needed to get to the Islands. So, Sir Richard opted to find a solution that not only facilitated his needs met, but also that of an entire plane full of stranded people. He helped himself to help others. Nota bene.
Sir Richard found a plane he couldn’t afford and chartered it. He made a sign and stood in the airport, “Virgin Airlines, $29.” And so was born Virgin Airlines. That simple.
Other rich (white) people prefer boats, like Peter Thiel.The project that he’s backing is called BlueSeed. It’s dubbed as the Googleplex of the Sea. Planned to sit off the coast of San Francisco somewhere and is its own island, a tax shelter. Love the idea. Loved it so much started combing the internets for used cruise ships for sale, everything below $600 million dollars, couldn’t go any higher than that. Pfft. Actually took a moment to laugh out loud at the very fact that I was searching for something that required that much money and didn’t even blink and eye. Thought to myself, who could do an Extreme Cruise Ship Makeover? Phillipe Starck? And which network could I sell the rights to? Oh, I was plotting as well as deviating from the plan. Dug further to see if anyone else had decided to convert a cruise ship into actual residences. Boom goes the dynamite! The internets wins: Utopia Residences.
This is the gist, not so bourgeoisie, but kind of. Need to get Sir Richard to donate a ship. Create a design competition around the repurposing of a cruise ship and how to architect a phenomenal work/live/play environment. We reinvent the Love Boat, snake person style (mLove Boat). I know the perfect guy to play Isaac, @GerryJobe, minus the handlebar mustache and afro :)
In all seriousness, take the concept of BlueSeed one step further and create an incubator that has the occupants all invested which gives them all a horse in the race, so to speak. When you create that shared wealth of knowledge and potential, everyone’s motivation comes together in creating innovation.
The mLove Boat is a startup vessel where all the inhabitants are investors and creators. Everything that is on that boat is shared. The intellect, ideas, wisdom, stories, collaboration, the success; all of it is shared. The greatest lessons in life are learned when you’re fully immersed in learning new things, doing things that scare the shit out of you and when you venture into the unknown. Do you see the common thread? What better than to be on a vessel with international occupants that now live, work and play together under one pirate flag. One nation under a groove.
Dream huge; look at the Summit Series folk. They pulled off the monsterest win of monster wins while creating a proven and successful model. Jump on a cruise ship for a weekend with the smartest and most innovative people from all walks of life and let them create, interact and produce. The Summit Series did not stop there. They created another gathering in the middle of nowhere and then bought up 9,600 acres of that nowhere which turns out to be Eden. No, seriously. Eden is in Utah. So brilliant and they’ve already started building Eden for everyone else to have a little piece of heaven. Now all that is left to do is replace 9,600 acres with a big boat and a bunch of dreams fueled by magic beans. If you know anyone, got a few left and would be willing to part with them for an Instagram* or two.
Spend one month in a different country for twelve months, full circle. I mean, it is a boat, right? Look at it as a coworking space that floats. Imagine being amongst the smartest people around the world and specifically one country per month with all the smartest people you’ve never heard of producing something that innovates and helps affect change in the world. The computer languages we use to build and code the world around us is a universal language, no religion or spoken language to create barriers, just pure simple poetry. It’s left up to the imagination of where the possibilities can go. Wrap up the month with a conference with the lessons learned and opportunities created to make this place a better one to exist and live within. That’s what I call a month long intensive workshop! It starts with working together and builds by teaching it together.
The mLove Boat will bring people together and share in the experience of their lives. Create the opportunities to accelerate their learning curve with real life situations and applications. The idea of the boat is to invest in what it produces, and the Love Boat is going to share a whole lot of love, but above all that, will create an innovation tsunami. Inverse Innovation, that is. Utilizing the skills sets of all the smartest people you’ve never met or heard of yet to create the solutions out of developing countries and find a use in developed ones. It’s time to change the way we look at how we innovate. Life experiences will give us the real world practical wisdom a college degree will not.
So to reiterate, I’m in need of some rich (white, yellow, brown, purple or glow in the dark) people that like crazy people with ideas that are way beyond time and space. I’ve gone on record putting the ask out for your money to help create this absurdly awesome idea together. There are a few supporters who in turn will get more and more. It’s just an idea on a napkin right now, but rest assured, it’ll be a dream that plenty want to share in; spend a month in a different country, live on an awesome boat with other like minded entrepreneurs, co-work and cross pollinate services with a myriad of skill sets to create even more amazing creations to share with the world. Every month, the smartest and most experienced people in the industry flock to your mLove Boat. If you build it, they will come. They will come and collaborate to create a different world. A world where everyone treats everyone better and create innovations that help us do that.
Don’t let anyone ever say you can’t dream, it just happened.
Hope floats.
*Instagram is now a unit of measure that replaces Billion.
eg.) Looks like Tumblr and Waze are both going to get bought for just over an Instagram.
