“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” - Vincent Van Gogh
Life has a funny way of reminding you that it is little more than one long sine wave.
Like a rollercoaster, one second you are staring at the sky, slowly crunching up a steep ascent towards the top of the world a singular ‘cla-clunk’ at a time. The next, seemingly without warning, you are hurtling towards the soil with nothing but faith that the stoned seventeen year old manning the controls still cares about humanity today. It’s interesting where your beliefs take you when the journey is largely out of your hands.
For all intents and purposes, 2022 was a year of Jupiterian gravity across the venture capital and early stage technology industries. No matter who you are, or what job you do, if you were in these spaces this year, the experience felt like an especially pernicious version of the cartoonish quicksand that has foiled many a jungle explorer the world over. What’s worse (and perhaps more darkly humorous), is that regardless if you had a handily placed metaphorical vine at the colloidal edge, the act of struggling left most of us worse off than if we had just stayed still - a Shakespearean level of situational irony when facing an assuredly disagreeable demise.
At this point on December 31st 2022, you may be sitting in a silent corner in your crowded familial home pondering on the precipice of a new year - “Is there something to be learned from such intensely uncomfortable and uncontrollable downward pressure?” The answer may not be one you like dear reader. Unfortunately, it appears as though the lesson is likely that this is exactly what we, contributors to this ecosystem, deserve.
In every historical societal example of excess, from Rome to Timbuktu, pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall. It is hard to look at the last few years of growth across technology and argue that our pride was anything but ubiquitous and spirits were anything but supercilious. While pride and spirit are not necessarily bad paradigms in a vacuum, a quick examination of the 2021 tribalism around cryptocurrency, the shell-game played with late-stage valuations in recent years, or many other inflated aspects of our industry illustrates how we were all increasingly collaborative in the collapse of our own Tower of Babel.
With this in mind - what can be done to prevent the multiplication of our own shortcomings? Well, simply put, we, as participants, increasingly owe it to ourselves and the ecosystem writ large to maintain realistic perspectives of the unbridled optimism needed to make pragmatic futurists. Now, while this is easier said than done when there is generational wealth on the line in an arena of violent competition, we no longer can (or should) base our reality in the direction that our pride is telling us to embark. If we are to have any hope of salvation in the coming year, balanced, practical humility of both the landscape and ourselves is now the name of the game. Shifting our thinking shifts the outcome.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” - Viktor Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning
The Highlights
While 2022 was a rough year for us all, there were some incredibly bright moments that we, as technologists, futurists, and capitalists, must pay heed to -
The launch of ChatGPT and the subsequent public adoption curve felt much like the early days of the iPhone - where consumers were in awe of the technology, and spent countless hours tinkering with the possibilities. We are still in early innings, and I am incredibly optimistic around the Cambrian Explosion of ideas that this development has brought forth.
The arrest of Sam Bankman Fried demarcated a specific point in time that illustrated how ‘too big to scam’ was especially not true in the cryptocurrency space. As a result, the industry has begun to purge from the inside out, with many true evangelists digging deep to find and shame other examples of bad actors in the ecosystem.
Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter left many people on polarized ends of the spectrum. Whether or not you believe this is good business practice for Mr. Musk, the goal of increasing the capacity of free-speech while reducing onerous governmental intervention in this practice is something that is deeply important to a progressive society. Martyrdom for what is just is often confused with apostasy for what is not.
Adobe acquiring Figma for $20 billion in the middle of one of the biggest routs in stock market history further illustrated that good businesses float with the current, while great businesses swim through it.
The Re-Onshoring of Semiconductor Manufacturing is one of the most technologically prescient decisions made by the Biden administration thus far. In blacklisting 21 major Chinese manufacturers, the future looks increasingly bright for domestic chip capacity. America’s fundamental autonomy seems to be on the rise once again.
This merely scratches the surface. It is important to remember that even in what is seemingly the darkest moments, extremely meaningful progress is being made towards a future that is far better than what we have today. When viewed at 20,000 ft, while 2022 was one of the worst destructions of value that we’ve seen since the burning of the Library of Alexandria (I joke), all around us critical infrastructure is being laid towards a significantly more lucrative future. This is what we signed up for. This is where hope still lies.
Conclusion
As progress slowly and relentlessly marches on around us, it can be easy to forget what we are really here for. The enthusiasm that we once felt at the beginning of our journeys can become calcified and trite. When things go badly (as they have done substantially at a macroeconomic level this year), we begin to grapple with our own spiritual purpose as our brokerage accounts dwindle, our businesses sputter, and our relationships strain.
It is in these moments that the new Churchillian heroes of our future will emerge. Those with blinders that prevent them from doing anything besides reaching the pinnacle of their own ambition. Those who can ignore the man behind the curtain pulling the strings because they are deeply in control of their own destiny. Those building now, when it’s complicated, for a more straightforward tomorrow.
While difficult, this is far from impossible dear reader. It is likely that you possess everything (and more) that it takes to pull yourself out of whatever quicksand you might find yourself in today. And in doing so, reach a level of immortality amongst the universe that will satiate even your wildest intellectual and spiritual desires. You are your own Exit Fuel, and the velocity you reach is merely a function of how willing you are to believe that simple fact.
To a more prosperous 2023.
— EXITS
Well said. Awesome first post, Mr. Exits! I hope you find sharing your thoughts in long form writing fruitful.