AKS Bullet Byte #3
A powerful framework, Abstracted from "Zero to One by Peter Thiel", to understand our own approach to future growth. Whether you are a startup entreprenuer or a young mind building a career - use this to understand your approahch and the profound impact on outcomes.
You can expect the future to take a definite form or you can treat it as hazily uncertain. If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.
Indefinite attitudes to the future explain what’s most dysfunctional in our world today. Process trumps substance: when people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options. A definite view, by contrast, favors firm convictions. Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it “well-roundedness,” a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it.
You can also expect the future to be either better or worse than the present. Optimists welcome the future; pessimists fear it.
Combining these possibilities yields four views
Indefinite Pessimism: Belief that the future is bleak and with no idea of what to do about it. For Eg Europe since the early 1970s. The indefinite pessimist can’t know whether the inevitable decline will be fast or slow, catastrophic or gradual. All he can do is wait for it to happen, so he might as well eat, drink, and be merry in the meantime: hence Europe’s famous vacation mania.
Indefinite Optimism: Expectation of a better future without specific plans due to uncertainty. To an indefinite optimist the future will be better, but he doesn’t know how exactly, so he won’t make any specific plans. He expects to profit from the future but sees no reason to design it concretely. For Eg. private equity investors and management consultants don’t start new businesses; they squeeze extra efficiency from old ones with incessant procedural optimizations.
Definite Optimism: Planning for a better future with clear goals and actions. To a definite optimist, the future will be better than the present if he plans and works to make it better. Example: American projects like the Apollo Program and the Interstate Highway System. This Often results in focused efforts towards achieving goals and creating a better future through strategic planning and execution whether or not successful.
Definite Pessimism: Belief in a known bleak future, preparing for it with certainty. Results in cautious and prepared individuals who are ready for potential challenges and setbacks. A definite pessimist believes the future can be known, but since it will be bleak, he must prepare for it. For Example: For China focussed on relentless economic growth and global dominance knowing that the chinese living standrards will certainly not catch up with western powers.
Source : Zero to One by Peter Thiel
