The mission that seemed impossible

You know what is so cool about AI?

Some of us have already had a mission, feel they were already successful in that mission, but now we are getting a bit older, and we are hesitant to take on that next mission that it all lead to, because it seems so overwhelming, and we are already tired, although that next bigger mission may be what everything else until now led to.

But how do we start something even bigger now, when getting here already took all we got?

So we are skirting around the issue and do more on things we already know, just on a bigger scale. And what we are doing may indeed be useful. We may indeed get applause for it from those around us, and EVERYBODY around us, those people we've been hanging with, who made us successful - even if pleasing them took certain compromises - are PLEASED with us. They agree that our mission so far looked really good.

But the next thing would not.

It wouldn't look good to our peers.

It is very necessary, for all, not just us, them as well, but in the short term, it would be...inconvenient for them. And us.

Certain realities would need to be faced.

Now, there may be ways that can ease the pain, bridges into the future that have already been built, ways to sell it, but still - to the late adopter and laggards among them who still support our current mission, it would seem like a betrayal, and while we may be able to envision getting the early adopters onboard - and some may already be there - just convincing some of the late adopter may seem like a gargantuan task.

And the laggardd - they could be seriously dangerous!

They could destroy everything we built so far!

And who would we be without our reputation, our brand??!

Sure, Walter Disney dreamed of Disneyland all his life, made it happen, but never got to see it, so there is value in starting things, but if you never get to see it, why take that pain?

Well, with AI, no you may have a chance to see it.

Those who know me may guess where this is going, but bear with me - it goes both ways. I mean myself, too.

I am not talking about a lateral, quantitative shift on the same level - if you currently produce a product, you produce more or branch out into another product.

I am not even just talking about a qualitative shift - if you currently produce a product, you make it a higher quality product, or you made a high quality product already, but hurt people and the environment to a degree doing so - so far a necessary consequence of business, you felt, you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs - but now you found a way to make it much more sustainable. That's a great shift, and very useful, and it goes into the right direction, but it still falls short of the REAL 10x, which lifts your efforts to a whole new dimension.

I am talking about a REAL synthesis of things that were previously polar opposites. If you previously served humanity only, you are now going one level up and serve all life - truly serve all life, you don't just appease the darn environmentalists here or there. If you were previously an animal or environmental activist you now serve humanity, too - truly serve humanity, not just appease them or guilt them so they fund your projects.

People on both sides may hate the idea, but if you are in business, think about it - it's exactly what you require your internal departments to do when you are a CEO - work together for the higher good of the entire company, and the BEST companies do exactly that.

I recently read Lloyd Blankfein's book - he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs during the credit crisis. As it happens, he was my CEO back then. I worked as a negotiator, negotiating trading contracts from End of 2007 to 2010. My main job was to get different departments AND the counterparty to agree on the terms of the contract I was negotiating. If they didn't agree, that contract wasn't signed. And negotiators were evaluated on the number of contracts they signed. Not just Goldman and the counterparty, but even the different departments internally sometimes has polar opposite positions on certain clauses - usually the credit department and the treasury department, which could have created a major obstacle, because of course the counterparty wanted equal terms for both parties.

But you know what?

They were always able to work it out for the good of the company in a speedy way on my level, and Lloyed Blankfein explains in the book how he wrangled the tigers on his level to make that happen way below on my level.

I worked for other companies later, and believe me, that didn't work like this in other companies, where departments were signed and actively fought each other. One of them doesn't exist anymore, the others were less successful.

Life on earth isn't any different. There is the "humanity only" department, and there is the "back to nature" department, there is the "tech only" department that wants to digitization all consciousness and do away with the "meat bodies" if possible (starting with lobsters), and there is the "get rid off all tech" department, which quite often coincides with the "keep all women in the kitchen" department.

But if the whole company (Earth) wants to not just survive but thrive, they all need to find a way to work together in a way they both win...and that is not possible on the same level, it requires a shift up.

Some companies are already on the way.

So are some nature lovers, by the way, the late Jane Godall was a great example who improved the lives of both - chimps and the humans around them.

So if you were that CEO and you truly recognized the usefulness of each of those departments, what is the moonshot you have been avoiding even starting? Or have you been preparing a lot, but never fully went in, because starting on the other side just seemed so overwhelming and is giving you such opposition from - well - everyone?

What if AI could help not just to start that moonshot, never to get anywhere in your lifetime, but what if it could accellerate growth EVERYWHERE in a way you never thought possible?

Now, this became a much longer post than I was planning to write - but what can I say? I got inspired and more and more excited myself while writing it.

Who knows, maybe this will help someone else out there, too!

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