Mike MasonThings are in a constant state of flux. Technology is eating the industries that touch our daily lives. The rate of change is so quick, and so random, the best indication we have for seeing where things are headed is private market investments in small technology companies, and the acquisitions of those small companies by larger corporations. These investments surface from underlying trends in a technology movement that’s gaining speed. Yet, the only common thread that investors can agree on when making investment decisions, is an investment in the people running the small companies. In particular, they are looking for earnest, energetic, and independent-minded individuals who they back with enough cash to figure out how to solve a problem within an industry.
How did we get here?
There was once, a single class division. The hunter and gatherer.
As we transitioned from nomads traveling the land, we started to congregate in increasingly larger groups. Tribes became villages, which became towns. Divisions of labor emerged as we moved beyond fulfilling our basic needs. Agriculture allowed us to feed large groups while settling in one place. We specialized our skills and traded our expertise with one another.
Towns became cities, and industry emerged. New divisions between owners and workers became prominent.
While all this was happening, the time between each of these massive shifts in how we live was getting smaller, and we began to replace the most menial tasks required to live the lives we’d become accustomed to – with machines.
We started replacing ourselves
Machines replace routine work first, they have since the earliest machines were invented. With the invention of the computer, we went from replacing routine labor to replacing routine thinking. As modest as early computer computations may have been, they get better at an accelerated rate. The rate of change in computing power is so aggressive that there is already a foreseeable date we can’t see past. A year, where the computers we create will surpass our ability to think as a global consciousness. The Singularity. wiki
As we approach and surpass this period in human history I will be 57 years old. Computers will have replaced so many of the roles we currently serve that a single unified class will emerge out of necessity. The very people we are collectively investing in to build our future.
The Change Agent
The Change Agent is a lifestyle perspective. A creative type with a hard coded belief in change – they use it to understand the dynamics that facilitate or hinder change. They take nothing face value, ignore tradition, question authority for the sake of authority, and avoid conformity. Change agents are instinctively curious, constantly seek fresh perspective, and their greatest tool is their ability to problem solve.
[Tweet “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often- Winston Churchill”]
