Kevin Vogelsang

All things that lack purpose fall apart and eventually die.  My friend Luis Fernandez gave a good example of this in his book The 5 Things to Learn: when a CD loses its purpose, when its mission to play music is lost, its last moments on earth will be flying through the air like a frisbee before shattering to pieces.

A strong sense of purpose is necessary for living a full life (and for being successful.)  When we embrace our mission, we can then take meaningful, directed steps to fulfilling that mission.  We have a need for meaning–though I think we spend a lot of time trying our best to avoid this truth.

Being around people with a strong sense of purpose is incredible. They create a place for us and allow us to fall into something bigger than ourselves. We gain greater energy from that.

Strong sense of purpose has another important effect: it allows us to create.  The creation process is the result of purposeful action, and  I’d maintain the act of creating is at the center of the being human and living.

-Kevin
7.26.2010

I recently came across an interesting concept: the will to power.

Upheld by the highly misunderstood philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, the will to power states that the desire to grow one’s strength is the driving force in man (and even beyond just man).  Achievement, ambition, desire for the highest station in life are all manifestations of the will to power.

Here is a particularly powerful quote on the topic from Nietzsche:

My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement (“union”) with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on.

This concept has a very interesting relationship with the topics we’ve discussed here on the blog: specifically Spheres of Influence and Community-Driven Movements.

The ‘will to power’, specifically its representation in the above quote, has a lot meaning within it.  We seek our Sphere of Influence, the realm in which we matter, and we then eventually meet those that have their own realm.  And if one is not dominant over the other, and is sufficiently related, we move forward together.

There is a lot there–and not just concerning plots of world domination.

-Kevin
4.22.2010

I first thought Twitter was interesting when I realized it was basically a stream of consciousness.  The costs of posting to Twitter are very low, so consequently, people post fairly frequently and about whatever is on their mind.  It doesn’t need to be about anything in particular.  You also aren’t costing your audience too much.  The cost of reading a tweet are nearly negligible…unless of course you’re blasting tweets at people (don’t do that)….

As you move up the chain to more “costly” forms of media (blogs, essays, books), things take more time and have to be more coherent. If you have to put a non-negligible amount of time into something, you feel like it needs to be good and polished.

You can learn a lot about someone through their blog, but I’d say in general blogs are a subset of that person’s consciousness.  The topics are either more important to them personally (thus providing the motivation to write more than a few characters about them), or the writer thinks they’re more important to their audience.  If you read a few 500 word blog posts that offer nothing interesting, you’ll soon spend your time elsewhere, so a blogger that is trying to deliver to an audience has to keep his audience in mind. (which could mean that a blog is also a reflection of the audience/community’s consciousness…..)

The next level up is essays and articles.  They’re more about topics.  Writing an essay takes too much time for it to reflect consciousness. (Although, they can still reflect the author’s interests.)

An author is lucky if you spend the time to even pick up a traditional, text-based book these days.  But these are even further removed from consciousness.  Any artifacts of consciousness left from an effusive burst of thought are usually edited to maintain consistency.

Moment to moment, we’re flickers of thought.  We can focus these flickers of thought in order to deliver more complex ideas and analysis, but this requires energy.  It isn’t our basal state. This makes Twitter quite interesting;  of all forms of media, tweets are the best representation of consciousness and the raw human experience.

-Kevin
4.17.2010

This is a favorite saying of mine, and it’s a very elegant and meaningful one.  I use it a lot.  I’ve been happy to see other people use it in a few places lately.

If you’re aren’t going to do it big, why are you doing it?  It’s a good question to ask.

Go Big or Go Home

-Kevin
3.29.2010

Back in high school, I was required to take a philosophy course.

My teacher made the following statement, “It has been said that The Western Tradition of philosophy, men sitting around in discussion, is a predatory mechanism.”

This is certainly a curious statement.  And I’m not sure it’s limited to the Western Tradition; this could just be an illusion of the way history is recorded.

The statement does not refer to men sitting around plotting strategies of war or something of that nature.  The statement refers to discussions that seem to have begun with the likes of Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato.

So what does this have to do with predation?  Here’s my theory of why this could be:

Any group of people sitting around discussing deep questions are making connections with each other.  Sharing deep personal thoughts requires some level of intimacy.  Additionally, discussing such questions also provides a window into the minds of those participating.  By listening to you answer tough questions, I’m able to learn something about you: what you value, your motivations, your biases, your weaknesses, your talents, and even your alliances with others involved.

These factors create dense and intelligent connections between people, which are the ingredients for creativity and action.

Here’s another theory as to why this could be true:
Discussions harness collective intelligence and collective creativity.  Consequently, they’re meme machines; discussions lead to ideas and attitudes that spread from an epicenter out to a network’s peripheral (and then perhaps amplified by other epicenters).

If you hear about an idea that resonates with you and strikes you as important, you’re likely to share it with others.  Shared experience is powerful, and it brings like-minded people together.  This creates social alignment–an important part of getting things done at a large scale.

You could say that philosophizing is a means of initiating a community-driven movement, which are capable of quickly accelerating.

The two theories are similar.  However, the first is more about the formation of a band of warriors that will take on a mission.  The second is about social alignment–which is an advantage harnessed by many species.  Both of these could be considered and used for forms of predation.

These are just two theories.  There are many others.  There are also other interpretations of the statement itself.  Perhaps the act of learning itself (which is done through discussion) qualifies philosophizing as a predatory? Perhaps discussion and the resulting debate allows a thought leader to emerge (which could relate to predation on different levels)?

So is it possible philosophizing is an act of predation?  What’s your theory?

-Kevin
3.8.2010

My friend and former classmate Bryan Hernandez recently posed this question, “Is there meaning in entrepreneurship?”.  This question is so important that I had to find some time during my travels to answer it.  It’s difficult, but I like these questions, as they always lead somewhere interesting.  There’s a summary at the end for the quick take.

A Word on Meaning

Answering a question like this requires at least a brief examination of the meaning of meaning. Since Bryan originally posed the question, I asked him what he thought got to the essence of meaning so I could answer his question.  I thought his response was pretty good:

I think meaning comes from a combination of intention and end-of-the-day value. If you intend to solve a problem the meaning of work can be just as important as that problem is bad.  If you happen to solve a problem (end-of-the-day value) then your work was still meaningful, you just didn’t necessarily intend it to be.

His answer alludes to the distinction of process and outcome.  I think this distinction is important to recognize. Meaning flows from both the process and the outcome.

Process

For me, and I believe in general, entrepreneurship is a way of life just as much as an occupation.  You’ll find entrepreneurs in big companies and academic institutions, as well as “out in the wild.”

So what does the process of being an entrepreneur entail?  Although many essays could be written on this (and have been), here’s two key aspects:

Identifying a meaningful problem. Important problems are the ones worth solving and worth building an organization in order to deliver the solution.  But, I’d caution passing judgments on companies that seemingly provide the answer to meaningless problems.  A meaningful problem does not need to be to end world hunger (although doing that in a sustainable way is incredibly meaningful.)  For instance, the world would continue without sticker manufacturers.  But is producing stickers meaningful? If you asked the founder of a sticker company, someone who probably sacrificed a lot to start this company, you’d probably learn that there is incredible meaning in something so simple.  The sticker manufacturer enables self-expression and provides a medium of communication that make people smile, laugh, etc.

So are stickers a frivolous detail of the modern world?  Maybe. But the world is an aggregation of many details.  Big problems are a result of many small problems, so  I wouldn’t be so fast to write them off.  (Then of course comes the question of, does producing economic growth have meaning? Despite the form it takes?  This is a big question that merits careful thought that won’t be addressed here. )

I’ll turn to Guy Kawasaki, author of Art of the Start.  I think Guy has some good thoughts on entrepreneurship.  Guy feels the first and most important task for an entrepreneur to accomplish is to “Make Meaning.”  Here’s Guy’s words from his book:

Image via Wikipedia

The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning….  Meaning is not about money, power, or prestige.  It’s not even about creating a fun place to work.  Among the meanings of meaning are to

• Make the world a better place.
• Increase the quality of life.
• Right a terrible wrong.

Some may say that entrepreneurship should be more about solving problems with a big market.  While I think it’s important to have a big market, I think this is secondary, if anything, by the nature of motivation itself.  It’s difficult to take the step from inspiration to perspiration, but it starts with identifying a meaningful problem.

Impact. Entrepreneurship is an avenue for exerting influence on world.  Part of engaging in developing a solution to a meaningful problem is believing that one can influence the world’s future for the better.  Entrepreneurs must do this.  And I believe this part of being an entrepreneur is extremely important and meaningful.

It’s easy to fall victim to the “nihilist’s trap” of believing nothing matters.  The world is a big place full of random injustices.  It’s easy to say, “what I do doesn’t matter.”  This state of mind is dangerous for the individual and the world.  It leads to apathy, unhappiness, and the devolution of meaning.

Entrepreneurs are the Nihilist’s doppelganger.  They epitomize the complete opposite of “meaninglessness”.  Entrepreneurship lends credence to the idea that the future is built one person at a time.  (This statement puts me at risk of the reader thinking that I’m probability blind.  It certainly takes luck to achieve a successful outcome, or even any outcome.  But, the outcome is only achieved by groups of people engaging in the entrepreneurial process.)  The sheer determination held by entrepreneurs causes them to be impact players, which makes their actions meaningful.  In the engineer’s terms, significant change in a signal (i.e. impact) is indicative of something meaningful, its not just noise.

Outcome

A very intelligent friend of mine, Peter Bojo, once posed the question, “if an entrepreneur doesn’t fill an opportunity [solve a problem], you can’t say that someone else won’t come along and do it.”

This is certainly rational, and at the time, I found it difficult to argue against its accuracy (although not necessarily the interpretation).  After gaining a little more experience, I realize this isn’t necessarily true.

The outcome of the entrepreneurial process is subject to randomness, the fickle nature of humans, regulatory and legal systems, technical limits,  economy, and so on. And similar to the birth of a child, or the evolution of a single-celled organism, upon studying the process, it seems very unlikely that, through the chaos, the pieces could come together in a meaningful way. And since it is a chaotic process, the outcome is often unexpected.

With this in mind, there are two things to think about. First, this may actually imbibe the process itself with more meaning.  By engaging the process, value and meaning can be produced.  Second, and more importantly, whether engaging in the entrepreneurial process was motivated by a meaningful problem or not, the outcome of the entrepreneurial process can be very meaningful independent of the motivations.

And what exactly is the outcome?  Since the frequent failures seem to result largely in no outcome, the outcome of entrepreneurship is a company, a repeatable (and sustainable) group of processes that generate wealth and address a market need.  Yet again, we’re left with the question, are companies and economic growth necessarily meaningful?

To provide a metric for the importance of the venture capital industry, and consequently a proxy for the importance of entrepreneurs, the NVCA has a stat: venture capital-backed companies accounted for $2.3 trillion dollars in revenue in 2006 (17.6% of the US GDP) and %9.1 of private sector employment.

The jobs aren’t necessarily meaningful.  But, this doesn’t have to due with the meaning of entrepreneurship or even companies.  This has more to do with the difficulties humans encounter when working in large groups.

And the meaning of some companies may be questionable, but the economic benefits and necessary wealth creation are at least a platform that allow us to engage in other meaningful activities.  Without private enterprise, who knows where we’d be (not that this isn’t answerable, in fact I’d like to see some good analysis of this question).  But, I would venture to guess that we’d be much closer to just subsisting, as opposed to investing our time and resources in other meaningful activities that one could engage in.

[But, I shouldn't leave you with the thought that entrepreneurs only attempt only goal is to start company.  As I said earlier in the post (way back, 100 lines previous), entrepreneurship is a way of life.  You'll find entrepreneurs in other contexts as well.  Not long ago I discovered that world class researchers are also very entrepreneurial, and not just because they're founding companies.]

Summary and Closing Thoughts

It’s difficult to put a finger on meaning.  But, I would say it’s safe to say that there is meaning in entrepreneurship, if anything at all is to be considered meaningful.  By engaging in the entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurs commit to solving meaningful problems.  Even if they fail to engage a truly meaningful problem, they create an opportunity for the creation of a meaningful outcome.  And it’s through these outcomes that we have the potential of living a life with meaning beyond subsistence.

On the level of the individual, entrepreneurs exemplify and thrive off impact.  They  influence the future and others around them one persistent step at a time. The entrepreneurs I’ve met have been among the most inspirational people I’ve encountered.  And when I meet someone inspiring that isn’t necessarily trying to found companies, I usually find that they’re very entrepreneurial.

Kevin
9.8.2009