The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future

Deep thinking and learning is also taxing on our energy stores, and so we require simplification and reinforcement. Our minds, through repetition or emotion, learn things and then, having committed them to memory, rely on this information and often never question it again; we put our energy into other things we deem more important. Like building a structure with a strong base, we make our mental models the foundation for adding newer information. We notice things that match our view and we dismiss things that do not. As we build our narrow knowledge on top of that foundation, we might not even realize when the foundation itself is weak. And so, as we go on with our lives, filtering a massive amount of information, we can easily become blind to important information, caught in our own bubbles, disregarding some information or alternative views, even when it might be helpful to us. Our decisions are shaped by what we regard as the facts, and if new information emerges that belies what we believe, it often hardens us to our original view.

Many of us think that we are in total control of our thoughts, but we fail to understand that our thoughts are highly influenced by the people around us and everything we read, see, and do. Many of those same choices are because we want to belong. That influence on us, much of which we don’t realize, traps us in our own bubble of reality that may look very different than others’.

Between Debt and the Devil,

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, it’s the refusal to acquire it.

Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Hitler persuaded into following him were, in his own words, a vacillating crowd of human children. It is also worth considering leadership today and to what extent we might be being manipulated.

Technology is a deflationary force so great that, in the end, nothing we do will stop it.

The best leaders are constantly learning, curious about where they made mistakes and actively looking for areas where they might have it wrong.

It took $185 trillion of debt to produce about $46 trillion of GDP growth over the last twenty years.

The world order, largely intact since the end of the World War II, seems to be breaking down. Capitalism, and its relentless march towards progress, allowed many to win. Although no system is perfect, the rules by which capitalism operated were well regarded and understood. You could expect that if you made a big bet and were wrong, you would be wiped out—but if you were right, your hard work, ingenuity, or risk taking would be rewarded. In game theory, we could call this a dominant cooperative strategy, and it dominated for the better part of the twentieth century. The rise of fiat currencies that could be manipulated domestically and the bailout in 2008 changed that strategy to one where the players whose bad bets caused the crisis, instead of being wiped out, were rewarded handsomely. Capitalism’s long-dominant cooperative strategy was replaced by a non-dominant strategy, crony capitalism, where the cheaters won.

Chen shared a story with me about his in-laws. It was shortly after the 2008 financial crisis. Chen had no reason to expect his in-laws were worried. They were in their eighties and they were financially secure. The crash had not hurt their lifestyle. But they watched the response to the crisis from governments around the world, and they remembered what they had seen before. He asked them why they were worried. Their answer stayed with him: “First currency wars, then trade wars, then real wars.

In the end, I realized that the things in life that I valued most—family, friends, integrity—weren't contingent on business outcomes and couldn't be taken away from me no matter what. Framed that way, all the challenges and risks of running a business were imminently more manageable. In that formulation, the riskiest proposition of all is to lose sight of who I was. To betray myself was the only way to truly fail. And for that reason, I left—with nothing but with everything.

Bitcoin’s high volatility is often used as an example of why it cannot be trusted as a global payment mechanism. Bitcoin is volatile; it lost 30 percent of its value in 2018, only to rise over 100 percent in the first six months of 2019. But that volatility must be put in context. The inflation rate on the bolívar, Venezuela’s local currency, was 1.8 million percent in 2018. Having the choice, even in 2018, I would much rather lose 30 per-cent on my Bitcoin than 1.8 million percent on my bolívar.

It’s a Wonderful Life,

Because it is easy to take advantage of the need to belong, more often than not, the way to consolidate power is through presenting others as villains causing our suffering.

Although the blockchain that Bitcoin sits on has never been hacked, transactions are difficult, which has slowed widespread adoption as a payment alternative. In addition to that, storage of Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies (wallets) has been prone to cyberattack or loss, creating a different form of risk. But even with risk and current high volatility, citizens in some parts of the world have less risk in holding Bitcoin than their own currency. The value can be moved across borders seamlessly or used as a payment mechanism when currency fails. In Venezuela today, for example, Bitcoin is already acting as a lifesaving currency for those who have it, as it is a much more secure payment medium than the local currency. Bitcoin’s high volatility is often used as an example of why it cannot be trusted as a global payment mechanism. Bitcoin is volatile; it lost 30 percent of its value in 2018, only to rise over 100 percent in the first six months of 2019. But that volatility must be put in context. The inflation rate on the bolívar, Venezuela’s local currency, was 1.8 million percent in 2018. Having the choice, even in 2018, I would much rather lose 30 per-cent on my Bitcoin than 1.8 million percent on my bolívar.

Can we challenge ourselves to create a better system for the world today by, instead of solving for an individual competition, finding a number of bigger goals that we must all solve for the benefit of humanity? A system that, instead of working for narrow parts of our society that pits us against each other, works for the greater “us”? The simple fact is that there is only one human race and all of us belong to it.

Axelrod’s groundbreaking work, The Evolution of Cooperation,

The conjunction of those three things—1) Maslow’s hierarchy, where many in the world or even our own backyard are at very different stages of the pyramid; 2) technology that targets us individually and therefore reinforces belief patterns; and 3) a natural tendency in humans to create “us versus them”—has the potential to create a dangerous reinforcing loop where hate and division reign. Especially if the world is becoming more unequal. The

In his seminal book Actionable Gamification, Yu-kai Chou proposes a framework called Octalysis. In that framework, Yu-kai believes that there are eight motivational forces that drive every action we take—not just in games, but foundational to everything.

Every company that was designed to have success in the twentieth century is designed to fail in the twenty- first century.” Salim Ismail, author of Exponential Organizations, said

Some of the biggest revolutions in science actually come from small refinements of existing theories. As Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”44 The biggest “giant” for Newton was Galileo: Newton’s work that resulted in the three laws of motion was influenced by Galileo’s work on forces.

Our economic systems were not built for a world driven by technology where prices keep falling. They were built for a pre-technology era when labour and capital were inextricably linked, an era that counted on growth and inflation, an era where we made money from scarcity and inefficiency. That era is over. But we keep on pretending that those economic systems still work.

Aggregating all supply and allowing that supply to compete for audiences is how all platforms gain their power.

Strong network effects are at the core of every platform business today. In fact, in a recent three-year study by NFX, network effects accounted for 70 percent of the value in technology companies over the last twenty-three years.

In 2015, Bill Gross gave a great TED Talk in Vancouver (viewed more than two million times) where he discussed his research on the differences between companies that succeeded or failed. The findings surprised even Bill when he determined that timing stood out above all in determining success rates of startups. In fact, 42 percent of the success could be attributed to timing. Rounding out the top five things in determining success were the team/execution at 32 percent, the idea at 28 percent, the business model at 24 percent, and funding at 14 percent.