Techno-optimism: immersive technologies

Many people implicitly believe that anything natural is better than anything created by humans, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Cooking on wood is much worse than cooking on an electric stove. Walking long distances is much worse than taking a car, train or plane. Sending an email is much better than having a courier … Read more

Techno-optimism: flying cars

One of the main complaints people have about the age we live in is that we were promised flying cars in the 1950s and 1960s and we got Twitter/X and 140 characters instead. The good news is that there are quite a few companies out there that are developing really compelling prototypes of flying vehicles … Read more

Techno-optimism: asteroid mining

Earlier in this series, I already discussed that we’re likely to go interplanetary during this century. Humans getting off this rock and spreading through the solar system is probably the best insurance we have against extinction due to a threat that wipes out Earth, such as an asteroid or all-out nuclear war. Of course, even … Read more

Techno-optimism: quantum computing

One of the historical facts that many do not know is that when computers were first developed in the 1940s, several computer architectures were explored that were quite different from the Von Neumann architecture that we ended up with. One of these was the dataflow architecture, where execution takes place based on the availability of … Read more

Techno-optimism: robotics and automation

One of the most interesting learnings from recent years is that it turns out that what we call “white-collar jobs” proved to be much easier to automate with AI than so-called “blue-collar jobs.” White-collar jobs require that thing that we think makes us so special as humans, intelligence, and most of the tasks involved are … Read more

Techno-optimism: space colonization

According to archeologists, Earth met with a major asteroid around 65 million years ago. That asteroid and the effects of its impact on our planet killed off the dinosaurs, the only descendants of these magnificent animals being the birds. The asteroid brought about an extensive winter due to the amount of material thrown into the … Read more

Techno-optimism: clean and free energy

Many worry about us destroying the planet and changing the climate. I think there’s little doubt that humans are an important factor. The rate at which the temperature is increasing seems to be much faster than during earlier periods. Also, it will cause migration of people as some parts of the world have simply become … Read more

From Agile to RADICAL: Conclusion

One of the most important challenges for humans is to deal with change. Our natural inclination is to keep things the same. This has worked incredibly well for most of human history where your life would have been quite similar to that of your parents and grandparents. Even if there were wars, famines and infectious … Read more

From Agile to Radical: purpose

All companies start with a purpose. They’re formed to solve a customer problem and, in that sense, their purpose is to solve the problem so that part of the value of the solution can be captured in revenue. They need revenue and free cash flow as they go bankrupt otherwise. Over time, as companies grow, … Read more

From Agile to Radical: evolution of goals

One of the topics that often comes up in the startups I’m involved in is sales. As companies seek to scale, they need to move from founder-led sales to hiring sales leads who can help increase their reach in the market. The challenge is that salespeople tend to be likable, smooth-talking individuals who don’t always … Read more