Time is hard to keep in building a startup

mage provided by wallpapersite.com

Days come and go to a degree where I was perplexed as to how to stay ahead of it. Time skates by stopping for no one …. forever. We all try to ride it as far as we can before we can no longer hold on. The question is no longer how much can I do? It is what “should” I do? You can put the same amount of effort into cleaning a pot as you would building a business. But we both know the return is substantially different.

Everyday you have to ask yourself what matter’s most — today. What will be the catalyst that will catapult me to the 10x domain…the new paradigm…the mentality adjustment. I quickly learned that I can’t do it alone. The world of silos has long passed. Everyone — negative or positive can help me if I use them effectively.

It’s challenging. Every night I am thinking what’s most important to move me forward tomorrow? As the Zuck says fail fast. Though he may have changed his motto, it still applies. It’s about quickly finding the gradient in your quest and adjusting ever so slightly until you enter enlightenment.

Time doesn’t care if you’re nice or mean, rich or poor. Time favors no one. But I must admit time seems bossy flaunting no exceptions to the rule. I have a hard time handling time. But I have learned one key principle… Remember your goal. Don’t focus on the solution. Focus on one thing and iterate on the product or service, correct what is wrong and run another simulation.

We all wish we knew the outcome. It used to plague me trying to discover what will happen. I don’t think this anymore. Because I know that if I keep making changes consistently every day and put it out there for review, the feedback is tremendous. You have to commit to daily scrutiny and remember why you are doing what you are doing. Glory will come but it comes with a cost. You have to be shaken down and put through rigorous test. Metaphorically, you have to be chiseled by Michelangelo “the David” to be proven.

The best you is always today. it’s not the future and certainly it is not the past. Everyday you are better than before. And if you keep this going everyday you will begin to feel an out of body experience…this euphoria realizing the things you are doing everyday feels like the inflection point just shifted. Time can be with you or against you. It’s a daily choice…it’s a right now choice.

Future of Innovation is within each Person

Image provided by Frank Frisby. Working on AI and software

We are moving to a world where innovation is no longer coming from companies. It’s a world where innovation is coming from individual people.

There are a limited amount of companies in the US and only a few of them bubble to the top. These companies try to hire to brightest people and rotate them every couple of years. Well this model may seem great but in the early 2000’s. The world has become competitive and there are astronomical amount of people coming online making business extremely competitive but more importantly making jobs far more competitive.

We have to change this mold that companies innovate. People are the real innovators and they don’t even know it. The way the world is shifting innovation is going to move faster and faster. The dirty truth is that some people think if they land a job, they are safe. They haven’t realized that the company they work for don’t even feel safe. They are threatened the exponential change of technology. They are having a hard time to keep up. And from a standard point of view, what is the easiest way for a company to update their innovation? It is to get rid of their existing people and bring in people who actually know how to build cutting edge tech.

Tony Stark working on his own projects in his private lab/garage

Where does this leave the employee? The employee is no longer relevant. This isn’t knew. Most employees have been feeling the shift in the market. And many millennials have been responding by dropping the loyalty bull crap and sticking with a company for a few years and moving on.

But we are shifting even further into a world where people need to become their own innovation machines. People will have to work on projects taking what others have done and rapidly build their prototypes. With China as one example, and companies fighting for the death, people are left closing the gap. The sad thing is that the gap is widening and majority of the people will fall in the bucket of unemployment.

How do you stay in the forefront? You have to build something that can really help people and force companies to recognize you. We live in a society where people are considered nobodies until they become someone. Your work matters. Even if you are not looking for work or looking for a startup, your work shows people that you care about seeing things come alive.

There are a few predictions I would like to make:

1. The economy might be shifting towards another short term recession.

2. Companies are permanently reducing staff and removing people who are deemed a cost (basically people who are not billable).

3. People are working for far more startups than working for larger companies.

4. Hiring is becoming exponentially harder as companies are tired of the hiring process and only picking people referred by people they know.

5. In the coming years because of spread of AI technology, people are being replaced at work.

6. There will be a gap between the extremely ambitious people who innovate ideas in their sleep and implement them before end of the next day vs. everyone else. The gap will be reflected in jobs, financial stability, recognition and social class.

We are building a platform that focuses on Innovation at the personal level. People are given the ability to build what they want and need. Cofounder is a place where you can innovate.

Elon Musk business has been Mars

Sharship SN15 - Credit: Space

Elon Musk has a huge aspiration for Mars and it’s something he has made very public. He wants to build a frontier on Mars as quickly as humanly possible.

We can all agree that his companies are completely remarkable and unmatched. So today, I am predicting that Elon Musk is not just commercializing his company products; he’s not just going to Mars. I think his entire portfolio and businesses were built for the exploration of Mars.

Let’s break it down. If you look at his companies and try to connect the reason why Musk is CEO, founder or investor, you can see his purpose goes back to Mars. What makes him smart is he commercialized the products making billions of dollars to fund his true main project.

SpaceX was designed for reusable rockets to allow multiple flights like airplanes. Recently just landed Sharship (SN15), which should be able to take people to the moon and Mars. This will obviously be used between earth and Mars. But reuse was extremely important. 1. it lowers the cost which makes his company the best and 2. it supports his mission to mars.

Tesla not only manufactured electric cars but more importantly the batteries create sustainable transport. If you haven’t noticed the cyber truck. It’s a very smart way to commercialize a product he might modify for Mars. But behind the scenes his team has built a very high energy density battery that supports long range.

Solar City is a simplified electric grid collecting energy from solar panels and storing it. Energy storage is paramount on Mars. This is part of Telsa, but this division of the company is technically a company of its own.

Starlink was designed to expand communication all around earth but also possibly around mars allowing both planets to communicate. But Starlink also allows for him to place thousands of satellites around Mars. What makes this company smart is other companies and agencies are paying for satellites that ultimately funds him make the better satellites for Mars.

The boring company focuses on infrastructure and tunnels. A lot of the work they are doing seems to be proving the concept and trying to create a very technologically advanced way of boring. On mars it seems highly probable to build underground tunnels because Mars surface could have sand storms and there is a thin layer of ozone. Thus, building underground tunnels will help quickly build civilization.

Hyperloop was created to transport vehicles. This was a project at one point. But it could become a real option in the future. Musk is known for dropping little Easter eggs. I think this form of technology will not only transport people but transport significant amounts of heavy equipment. If you want to automate construction on Mars, Hyperloop would be a great way to transport raw materials and equipment to different locations using the skate technology below ground.

I think the reason why Elon originally was a co founder to OpenAI was because they could build artificial general intelligence that just focused on operations and performing tasks. And he could use this technology to helps solve problems on Mars.

Which brings me to NeuraLink. At first I didn’t understand why Elon would want to build NeuraLink. But I see the genius in why he wants this. If you were to go to Mars where there is no communication, no food, no people, no water. How do you survive? If you look back on the 2015 film, the Martian, Matt Damon had some issues. 1. His team left the planet and didn’t know if he was alive or not. 2. He tried to communicate back home to NASA and it took so much work. 3. He had to rely on his knowledge on how to create food. 4. There was no one there to help him.

NeuraLink doesn’t seem hugely beneficial here on earth except for helping with medical issues. And people are resistant to connecting their brains to this device. But if you knew were going to Mars, I think the pros certainly out way the cons. You will certainly wear one if you knew that you could connect to all of the satellites and systems to support you. Anyone would do it than to be left in the abyss. You will always know where you are in space. You can connect to the cameras. You can control the tools and equipment on Mars. You can automate processes without using a computer per say. Technically if robots came on line, you can automate the construction process of the civilization.

Neuralink might be the connection to all of the equipment and tech Elon and his team is building. For now he may sell to healthcare, then NASA and then other agencies and then use it on Mars. But Neuralink helps the people on Mars control their environment rather than the environment controlling them.

The genius in all of this is Elon separated each of the companies so that each one focus on their one aspect of the big picture. So there’s no corruption from inside and no entity can force him to break it up. The only limitation is his physical capacity to work 100 hours a week. If Elon can keep this up, which I’m sure he can, not only will he win the race to Mars he will have very intelligent tech that will help him.