There is more money in the world than there has ever been...

...so what is it being invested in?

Received an unexpected call from a candidate investor this morning, and in our discussion, by far the most striking thing he mentioned was how there is more money in this world than there has ever been.

That's something I think about a lot and is one of the things that leaves me scratching my head. If there is so much money in the world (and there is, even if it is all fiat money), and all that money is searching investment in which to grow, how is this not a golden era of innovation, with technological and social innovation companies blessed with liquidity to create new value for exploitation?

I could write a book on this subject (actually, a few years ago a registered the domains make-money-not-progress for this exact purpose), but won't do so here. I will just use the occasion to document how frustrated I am with the hypocrisy and inefficiency of the current economic paradigm. When I have frank discussions with my colleagues on both sides of the table (investors and startups), there is general admission or admonition of flawed system. And, given how both sides supposedly champion disruption, it is inconceivable to me how this system so successfully escapes disruption from within!

TechNoel

Answers to the question from Vaughn and Noor. Art with Eva...

Evolutionary Purpose

Will and I discussed finding the balance of progress and purpose in organisations (startups and otherwise) which reminded me of the book Reinventing Organizations by Frédéric Laloux which was recommended to me by one of my mentors. We found the clip above on YouTube (if you're not familiar with Laloux, it's a nice short summary of his work) and one element stood out for me: what he called Evolutionary Purpose . How I understand this concept is that the purpose (or soul) of an organisation evolves over time, rather than an individual or leadership team directing towards a specific outcome. It's very much in line with the sailboat analogy and the lunch discussion I had with the team. It is very reassuring to me that the people closest to me today all affirmed my feelings on leadership, and interesting that it often took very different paths/context for us to be able to truly connect on the subject.

Sniffles

Of course I pushed too hard and paid the price of feeling that scratchiness in my nose by mid-morning. At best I was gonna carry a mild cold through the holidays. At worst I'd be a write-off for an entire week (which happened to me right after Christmas in 2015). It's not difficult to realise that I pushed too hard. Despite being on Startical with its explicit guidelines , there was just way too much to get done before the holidays. Even my Startical posts for nearly the past week have been placeholders to fill in later. And now that's caught up to me and I'm starting sniffles. The challenge now is striking the optimal balance between preventative care and completing my commitments before Christmas: sending out personalised Owl-iday e-mails including the Owl-iday Special I had worked so hard to create. I think I'll err on the side of preventative care as I really don't want to wrap up Startical feeling sick and useless...

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